UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


l-«t  Ante  st*»">- 


/3 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

LIBRARY, 

ANGELES,  CALIF. 


STUDIES  IN 

CONTEMPORARY 
METAPHYSICS 


BY 


R.  F.  ALFRED  HOERNLE 


HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,   BRACE   AND  HOWE 
1920 


503G7 


COPYRIGHT,   I92O,  BY 
HARCOURT,    BRACE   AND   HOWE,    INC. 


THE  OUINN  a    aoDEN  COMPANY 
BAHWAY.   N.  J 


PREFACE 

THE  Studies  contained  in  this  volume  may  be  described  as 
chips  from  a  metaphysician's  workshop,  or  perhaps  I  should 
rather  say  blocks  hewn  out  experimentally  in  the  effort  after 
a  systematic  synthesis;  not  unlike  the  painter's  sketches,  or 
the  sculptor's  rough  modellings  in  clay,  which  precede  the 
(  finished  work.  The  day  for  systems,  we  are  constantly  told, 
-  is  passed,  but  not,  let  us  hope,  the  day  for  philosophers  to 
^  continue  the  effort  to  think  systematically.  Much  scorn  has 
been  poured  on  the  philosophical  systems  which  sprang  into 
being  so  abundantly  a  hundred  years  ago,  fit  heralds  of  a 
century  which  has  been  well  called,  in  retrospect,  "  the 
^|  Century  of  Hope  ".  We  children  of  an  age  of  disillusion- 
^'  ment  need  to  recapture  something  of  the  confidence,  the 
speculative  daring,  of  the  great  thinkers  of  the  past.  On 
the  printed  page  their  "  systems  "  are  apt  to  appear  as  vain 
attempts  to  imprison  the  rich  and  varied  life  of  the  world  in 
a  rigid  pattern  of  conceptual  pigeon-holes.  But  of  their 
spirit,  their  endeavour  after  wholeness,  their  effort  to  think 
systematically,  we  cannot  have  enough.  We  certainly  need 
more  than  we  have.  At  any  rate,  the  following  Studies  are 
inspired  by  the  conviction — itself  not  an  a  priori  assump- 
tion, but  a  conclusion  slowly  gathered  from  the  business  of 
philosophising — that  experience,  taken  as  a  whole,  gives  us 
clues  which,  rightly  interpreted,  lead  to  the  perception  of 
order  in  the  universe,  a  graded  order  of  varied  appearances. 
The  concepts  of  the  "  order  of  the  universe  "  and — in  the 
Platonic  phrase — of  the  "  saving  of  the  appearances  "  de- 
fine, between  them,  the  ideal  which  I  have  had  before  me. 
The  saving  of  appearances  calls  for  a  theory  which  enables 

v 


vi  PREFACE 

us  to  appreciate  each  appearance  for  what  it  really  is,  and 
which  exhibits  each  in  its  place  among  other  appearances  in 
the  universe.  I  should  be  false  to  this  conviction  if  I  did 
not  add  that  it  does  not  seem  to  me  alien  to  the  practical 
task  of  meeting  the  varied  incidents  of  human  life  with 
steadfast  wisdom. 

The  student  surveying  the  multifarious  tendencies  and 
movements  of  contemporary  thought,  may  well  feel  as  if  he 
stood  at  the  parting  of  many  ways,  presented  as  alternatives 
for  his  choice.  On  the  one  side  he  will  find  himself  told! 
that  the  philosophic  spirit  is  in  essence  subjective  and  senti-; 
mental,  that  it  allows  moods  and  desires  to  colour  its  view  of 
the  world,  that  it  rebels  against  the  inevitable  limits  of 
human  knowledge.  He  will  be  advised  to  turn  his  back  on 
the  chaos  of  the  actual  world  and  seek  comfort  amidst  the 
eternal  verities  of  pure  reason.  He  will  hear  it  said  that 
only  those  subjects  are  fit  for  the  philosopher's  attention, 
in  the  study  of  which  he  can  be  ethically  neutral.  He  may 
meet  with  the  view  that  it  has  never  yet  been  proved  that 
the  universe  is  not  a  grand,  and  in  parts  rather  cruel,  joke 
and  that  he  who  enters  into  the  joke  and  plays  with  it,  is 
more  likely  to  get  real  insight  than  he  who  takes  the  uni- 
verse seriously  and  stakes  reason  and  happiness  on  its 
orderliness  and  goodness.  On  the  other  hand,  he  will  meet 
with  a  continuous  tradition  in  philosophy,  supported  by  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  the  past,  and  vigorous  at  the  present 
day,  not  from  mere  subservience  to  their  authority,  but  be- 
cause fresh  .generations  of  philosophers  find  the  insight  of 
their  predecessors  verified  by  their  own  thinking.  This 
tradition  stands  for  the  "  rationality  "  of  the  universe,  not 
merely  in  the  formal  sense  of  every  detail  in  it  being  sub- 
ject to  the  law  of  sufficient  reason,  but  even  more  in  the 
prof ounder  sense  of  its  being  the  home  of  the  values  which 
we  commonly  call  spiritual. 


PREFACE  vii 

Such,  briefly,  are  the  alternatives  before  the  student.  His 
choice  cannot  be  settled  by  tossing.  It  cannot,  like  the 
choice  of  Buridan's  ass,  be  unmotived.  And  though  it  be 
temperamental,  it  will  not,  therefore,  be  irrational  or  arbi- 
trary. For  the  factors  which  determine  a  thinker's  choice  in 
fundamental  matters  such  as  these  are  "  objective  " — drawn 
from  his  nature  which  is  conditioned  T)y  the  universe  of 
which  he  is  a  part;  drawn  from  his  experience  which  is  a 
function  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives,  the  education  he  has 
received  and  continues  receiving,  the  incidents  and  acci- 
dents of  his  checkered  existence,  all  he  has  done  and  left 
undone,  all  he  has  felt  and  thought.  It  is,  once  more,  the 
universe  which  communicates  itself  to  him  in  these  miscel- 
laneous ways.  From  these,  and  with  these,  materials  he 
must  gather  his  philosophic  vision.  He  has  no  other  ma- 
terials to  work  with.  In  them  he  must  find  his  clues,  learn- 
ing to  discriminate  the  thoughts  which  are  superficial  from 
those  which  yield  the  deeper  knowledge.  Having  done  this 
honestly,  he  must  stand  by  the  result.  It  is  truth  for  him, 
and  he  has  done  his  part. 

From  this  confession  of  my  philosophical  faith,  I  turn 
gratefully  to  record  my  countless  obligations  to  others. 
These  obligations  are  not  to  be  judged  merely  by  the  quota- 
tions in  the  text  or  the  references  in  footnotes.  The  selec- 
tion of  the  former  is  due  often  to  no  more  than  the  caprice 
of  memory,  or  the  chance  of  recent  reading.  The  latter  are 
given  mainly  where  the  argument  is  polemical,  or  a  particu- 
lar allegation  stood  in  need  of  support.  I  know  that  I  owe 
more  than  I  can  in  detail  set  down  to  discussions  with,  and 
to  the  books  of,  many  friends  and  colleagues,  at  Harvard 
and  elsewhere.  Like  every  teacher  I  know,  too,  how  much 
my  students  have  helped  me  to  clearer  thought  and  ex- 
pression. It  is  a  sincere  pleasure  to  record  here  my  grati- 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


tude  to  all  who  were,  in  that  I  learned  from  them,  my 
teachers,  willing  or  unwilling,  nameable  or  nameless. 

But  there  are  two  specific  obligations  which  I  cannot 
forbear  to  single  out.  One  is  to  the  training  which  I  re- 
ceived at  Oxford — a  training  the  method  and  spirit  of 
which  still  seem  to  me  beyond  praise,  in  that  it  combined 
sound  historical  foundations  with  keen  attention  to  every 
living  movement  of  the  present  day.  From  the  example  and 
practice  of  my  teachers  I  learned  to  read  the  great  thinkers 
of  the  past  as  if  they  were  contemporaries — as  indeed  they 
are  in  that  realm  of  speculation  where  great  thoughts  do 
not  age — and  to  feel  how,  across  centuries  and  generations, 
the  sense  of  fellowship  in  the  quest  of  truth  and  wisdom 
may  bind  men  together. 

And  the  other  obligation  is  to  Dr.  Bernard  Bosanquet  in 
whose  philosophical  life-work  I  find  the  most  vital,  and  in 
the  best  sense  empirical,  statement  of  "  idealism "  or 
"  speculative  philosophy  "  in  modern  philosophical  litera- 
ture. So  far  as  I  can  judge,  I  owe  to  him,  more  than  to1 
any  other  single  writer,  the  essential  frame-work  of  my  own 
philosophical  thinking. 

It  is  my  hope  shortly  to  continue  the  present  series  of 
Studies  in  a  second  volume  which  will  be  devoted  especially 
to  problems  bearing  On  the  controversy  between  idealism 
and  realism.  It  will  also  give  me  an  opportunity  to  expand 
and  defend  the  positions  taken  up,  or  implied,  in  the  present 
volume  on  such  topics  as  universals,  theory  of  knowledge, 
and  truth. 

It  remains  to  add  that  the  sixth  essay  originally  appeared 
in  the  Philosophical  Review,  and  that  a  few  passages  in 
the  second  essay  formed  part  of  an  article  in  the  Chronicle. 
My  thanks  are  due  to  the  editors  for  their  permission  to 
reprint.  R.  F.  A.  H. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    PROLOGUE:  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST    .\  3 

II.    THE  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  IN  PHILOSOPHY  .  24 

III.  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  AT  THE  CROSS-ROADS      .  50 

IV.  ON  "  DOUBTING  THE  REALITY  OF  THE  WORLD  OF 

SENSE" 70 

V.    "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  IN  THE  PHYSICAL 

WORLD -99 

Note  on  John  Locke's  Distinction  of  Primary  and 

Secondary  Qualities 139 

VI.    MECHANISM   AND   VITALISM:    A   STUDY  IN   THE 

ORDER  OF  NATURE 141 

VII.    MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM:  FURTHER  PROBLEMS  .  163 

Note  on  Bergson  and  The  Origin  of  Life      .       .  196 

VIII.    THEORIES  OF  MIND 203 

Note  on  The  Theory  of  Knowledge      .       .       .244 

IX.    THE  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  .       .       .       .250 

X.    EPILOGUE:    RELIGION   AND   PHILOSOPHY   OF   RE- 
LIGION      294 


STUDIES  IN  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS 


CHAPTER  I 
PROLOGUE:  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST 

WHAT  is  Philosophy?  Once  again  this  has  become  a  burn- 
ing question  for  philosophers.  For  behind  all  the  current 
self-criticism  of  philosophers,  behind  all  the  argument  about 
method,  subject-matter,  function,  value;  about  the  alleged 
lack  of  progress;  about  the  desirability  of  greater  agree- 
ment and  the  best  way  of  achieving  it,  there  lies  the  uneasy 
suspicion  that  all  is  not  well  with  philosophy.  Philosophy, 
we  are  told,  especially  in  its  academic  form,  nay  because 
of  its  academic  form,  has  become  barren;  it  has  lost  touch 
with  the  vital  problems  and  perplexities  of  our  age. 

True,  to  a  kindly  eye  there  are  evidences  in  plenty  of 
vigorous  philosophical  life.  Speculative  interest  and  activity 
have  been  of  recent  years  increasingly  varied  and  enterpris- 
ing. There  has  been  no  lack  of  originality.  There  has 
been  an  abundance  of  new  methods,  new  insights,  new 
movements,  if  not  new  systems.  The  opening  of  the  cen- 
tury found  idealism  widely  established  as  the  dominant 
doctrine.  Since  then  the  trumpets  of  pragmatism  have 
blared  for  the  fall  of  the  walls  of  the  idealistic  Jericho, 
and  realisms  of  all  sorts,  "  new  "  or  "  critical  ",  have  sought 
to  shake  its  foundations  by  many  novel  forms  of  intellec- 
tual battering-rams.  But  the  defenders  have  rallied  and  are 
rallying,  and  between  the  vigorous  resistance  of  old,  and 
the  heralding  of  new,  idealisms,  the  battle  is  far  from  hav- 
ing been  won  by  the  assailants.  In  some  detachment  from 
the  main  struggle,  vitalism  in  several  forms,  from  Driesch  to 
Bergson,  has  attempted  philosophical  constructions  and 

3 


4  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

reconstructions.    And  there  are  minor  movements  and  cur- 
rents too  numerous  to  mention. 

To  a  student  content  to  enter  heart  and  soul  into  this 
conflict  of  theories,  the  present  situation  may  well  seem  full 
of  interest  and  promise.  And  yet  the  very  variety  and  in- 
geniousness  of  these  modern  philosophies  may  beget  a  dis- 
heartening doubt.  Is  anything,  after  all,  being  achieved  by 
all  this  brilliant  thinking  and  vigorous  arguing?  Does 
novelty  guarantee  progress  or  truth?  Does  any  question 
get  settled?  Is  there  any  gain  in  insight  and  wisdom?  Is 
the  whole  enterprise  of  philosophy  at  bottom  really  worth 
while? 

The  mood  from  which  such  questions  spring  is  especially 
prevalent  at  the  present  day.  Nor  is  it  hard  to  see  why 
this  should  be  so,  why  the  familiar  criticisms  and  self- 
criticisms  of  philosophy  should  come  home  to  its  students 
just  now  with  peculiar  poignancy,  and  be  the  source  of  a 
singular  ferment  and  unrest.  The  broad  contact  of  philos- 
ophy with  all  sides  of  human  life  and  experience  has  always 
exposed  it  to  certain  criticisms,  but  these  have  received  fresh 
point  and  force  alike  from  the  tragic  sufferings  which  hu- 
manity has  undergone  in  the  recent  war  and  from  the  rapid 
changes  in  the  economic,  social,  and  political  order  which 
we  a*re  now  witnessing.  Philosophy  is  being  weighed  by 
practical  men  and  by  social  reformers,  by  scientists  and 
by  theologians.  Why  is  the  verdict  so  frequently,  "  Found 
Wanting  "? 

In  the  average  man's  life  the  pressure  of  practical  needs 
is  constant.  In  manual  labour  and  in  business,  at  work 
or  at  play,  there  are  always  things  to  be  done,  and  done 
immediately.  There  is  at  best  little  leisure  for  sustained 
thought  on  "  first  and  last  things,"  and  even  less  inclina- 
tion, for  such  thinking  is  at  first  unsettling,  always  ardu- 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  5 

ous,  and  not  always  crowned  by  the  attainment  of  cer- 
tainty. So  far  as  the  plain  man  has  a  working  faith  to  live 
by,  he  has  not  got  it  from  philosophy.  So  far  as  he  feels 
the  need  of  one,  it  is  not  through  philosophy  that  he  will 
seek  it.  For  that  way  is  long  and  difficult,  and  he  wants 
a  short-cut  to  certainty.  Moreover,  many  philosophical 
problems  do  not  seem  to  bear  on  his  troubles  and  per- 
plexities, his  hopes  and  fears,  at  all.  Hence  he  is  impatient 
of  such  speculations,  and  has  little  tolerance  for  enquiries 
which  promise  no  solution  for  his  pressing  difficulties; 
which  cannot  be  translated  forthwith  into  a  plan  of  action; 
which  have  no  direct  bearing  on  his  comfort,  prosperity, 
happiness.  Indeed,  inasmuch  as  philosophy  requires  leisure, 
it  may  seem  to  him  even  an  improper  luxury,  a  form  of 
pretentious  but  unproductive  idleness. 

In  an  even  more  formidable  form  this  accusation  of 
uselessness  has  recently  been  levelled  against  much  of  cur- 
rent philosophy  by  philosophers  and  others  whose  first  in- 
terest is  in  social  and  educational  reform.  Philosophy,  these 
critics  complain,  has  either  lost  contact  with  the  urgent 
problems  of  present-day  society,  or  else  maintains  this  con- 
tact in  an  unfruitful  way.  "  There  is  no  force  so  explosive 
as  the  force  of  ideas  " — but  present-day  philosophers  have 
ceased  to  produce  ideas  that  move  the  world  as  ferments  of 
reform.  In  the  past,  philosophical  theories  have  more  than 
once  shaken  the  social  order  to  its  foundations:  to-day  the 
philosopher's  tendency  is  to  look  upon  social  phenomena 
simply  as  facts  to  be  observed  and  understood.  Divorcing  - 
theory  from  practice,  he  becomes  a  mere  recording  spec- 
tator even  of  social  ills,  of  economic  injustice,  political 
tyranny,  educational  stupidity.  His  interest  even  in  move- 
ments towards  reform  and  revolution,  and  in  the  ideals  by 
which  these,  and  the  resistance  to  these,  are  inspired,  is 
restricted  to  that  of  the  aloof,  dispassionate  onlooker.  Yet 


6  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.I 

is  he  not  a  citizen  as  well  as  a  philosopher,  and  should  he 
not  put  his  philosophy  in  the  service  of  his  citizenship? 
Does  not  a  completer  conception  of  his  function  demand 
of  him  that  he  be  both  observer  and  leader?  Especially 
to-day,  when  the  war  has  thrown  the  old  order  into  the 
melting-pot;  when  the  traditional  relationships  between 
classes  and  nations,  and  the  beliefs  by  which  these  relation- 
ships were  sustained  and  approved,  are  rapidly  being  dis- 
solved; when  vast  changes  are  in  process  the  drift  of  which 
no  man  can  foresee  and  none  claim  to  be  able  to  guide 
assuredly  to  a  wise  and  happy  issue — is  it  not  pre-eminently 
a  time  for  taking  thought,  and  devoting  trained  intelligence 
to  the  great  task  of  making  this  a  better  world  for  men 
and  women  to  live  in?  If  the  "  lover  of  wisdom  "  have  any 
wisdom,  here  surely  is  his  opportunity.  To  refuse  this 
service  to  the  common  weal  would  be  for  him  the  great 
refusal,  the  great  betrayal.  In  this  spirit  many  hard  things 
have  recently  been  said  about  "  otiose  speculation  "  and 
''parasitic  professors,"  about  the  sheltered  irresponsibility 
of  the  academic  scholar,  who  either  ignores  these  problems, 
or  else  is  tempted  to  defend  the  established  order  of  which 
he  is  one  of  the  beneficiaries,  or  at  best  propounds  theories 
which  he  never  submits  to  the  searching  test  of  practical 
application.  And  apart  from  the  special  need  for  thought 
on  social  and  political  reform,  these  critics  lay  down  the 
principle  that  the  only  kind  of  thinking  which  is  worth 
while  is  the  thinking  which  is  instrumental  to  action,  and 
that  the  only  way  of  determining  the  truth  of  a  theory  is  to 
experiment  with  it  by  putting  it  into  practice. 

When  we  turn  to  the  contact  of  philosophy  with  science, 
we  pass  into  a  calmer  air.  Not  philosophy's  bearing  on 
conduct,  but  its  methods  and  achievements  as  pure  theory 
are  now  the  subject  of  challenge.  In  part  this  challenge  is 
still  inspired  by  the  old  suspicion  against  "  metaphysics  " 


Ch.  I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  7 

which  we  have  inherited  from  Comte's  positivism  in  France 
and  from  the  reaction  against  post-Kantian  idealism  in  Ger- 
many.   The  philosopher  is  still  supposed  to  want  to  settle, 
in  a  high-handed  a  priori  way,  empirical  problems  which 
science  unravels  by  patient  observation  and  ingenious  ex- 
perimentation.   Or  else  he  is  regarded  as  indulging  in  fanci- 
ful guesses  concerning  the  "  unknowable  "  reality  which  lies 
behind  phenomena — guesses  which  must  remain   forever 
unverifiable  seeing  that  their  object  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
experience.     Where   these   criticisms   have   gone   out   of 
fashion,  they  have  frequently  been  replaced  by  a  more 
formidable,  because  more  plausible,  challenge  based  on  the 
proverbial  lack  of  agreement  among  philosophers.     They 
are  invited  to  note  how  complete,  by  comparison,  is  the  con- 
sensus of  scientific  experts;  how  steady  and  cumulative  the 
progress  of  scientific  theory.    On  the  one  side  a  perpetual 
clash  of  individual  opinions  and  inconclusive  arguments,  on 
the  other  a  solid  accumulation  of  well-observed  facts  and 
experimentally   verified   theories   by   the   cooperative   re- 
searches of  successive  generations — this  is  how  the  com- 
parison is  apt  to  appear  to  a  scientist.    Nay,  he  may  push 
his  challenge  deeper  still.    Is  philosophy  really  entitled  to 
rank  above  science  in  the  system  of  knowledge?    Does  it 
deserve  the  name  of  "  knowledge  "  in  the  scientific  sense 
at  all?    Is  it  not  rather  to  be  classed  with  faith  and  belief, 
or  again  with  poetry  and  imagination?    How  can  its  multi- 
farious guesses  be  valued  above  the  certainties  of  science? 
This,  clearly,  is  to  call  in  question  the  traditional  claim  of 
philosophy  to  offer  a  profounder  and  more  comprehensive 
insight  into  the  nature  of  the  universe  than  any  other  mode 
of  thought.    No  other  indictment  has  found  so  ready  an 
echo  in  the  ranks  of  philosophers  as  this.    Not  for  the  first 
time  at  the  present  day  is  the  comparison  with  science  being 
used  by  philosophers  themselves  to  point  a  moral  for  philos- 


8  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

ophy  and  press  home  a  demand  for  a  fresh  start  by  the 
application  of  "  scientific  method." 

Lastly,  there  is  the  contact  of  philosophy  with  religion, 
of  which  philosophy  appears,  now  as  the  rival,  now  as  the 
critic,  now  as  the  sympathetic  interpreter  and  defender. 
In  each  role,  it  lays  itself  open  to  challenge.  It  is  being 
criticised  either  as  too  religious  or  as  not  religious  enough. 
To  those  who  care,  above  all,  for  the  stability  of  religious 
faith,  and  are  accustomed  to  rest  that  stability  upon  author- 
ity, most  modern  philosophy  seems  little  better  than  the 
presumptuous  emancipation  of  the  individual's  reason  from 
the  assured  truth  which  church  and  revelation  provide.  To 
others — and  they  are  many — who  turn  to  philosophy  in  the 
hope  of  finding  there  a  ready  means  of  dispelling  religious 
doubts  and  rebuilding  a  shattered  faith,  it  seems  but  too 
often  to  bring  nothing  but  deeper  doubt  and  greater  per- 
plexity of  spirit.  Yet  when  a  philosopher  defends,  not 
perhaps  the  details  of  dogma,  but  at  least  the  legitimacy 
of  religious  faith,  or  when  he  characterises  reality  as  God, 
there  are  always  critics  ready  to  accuse  him  of  disingenu- 
ousness,  or,  at  least,  of  self-deception;  of  cloaking  unortho- 
dox doctrine  in  orthodox-sounding  language;  and  delaying 
the  inevitable  death  of  a  creed  outworn.  Yet,  for  all  this, 
no  other  problem  stirs  the  philosophical  thought  of  the  age 
so  profoundly  as  this  problem  of  religion.  For  religious 
need  and  religious  experience  are  facts  too  universal  to  be 
ignored,  and  whether  he  adjust  his  religion  to  his  theory  of 
the  universe,  or  his  theory  of  the  universe  to  his  religion, 
no  philosopher  who  deals  with  fundamentals,  or  tries  to 
get  beyond  piecemeal  problems  to  an  understanding  of  the 
whole,  can  avoid  dealing  with  religion  as  one  of  the  central 
experiences. 

These  criticisms,  grave  at  all  times,  have  recently  cut 
with  a  sharper  edge  wherever  philosophers  have  found 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  9 

themselves  citizens  of  countries  at  war.  At  a  time  when  all 
were  eager  to  put  their  best  at  the  service  of  their  nation, 
what  had  they  to  offer?  Other  workers  in  theoretical  fields 
did  not  lack  opportunity  to  apply  their  knowledge.  There 
was  an  obvious  call  and  use  for  the  trained  skill  and  special 
information  of  almost  every  kind  of  scientist.  Chemist 
and  physicist,  engineer  and  geologist,  doctor  and  psycholo- 
gist— every  one  had  specific  contributions  to  make  to  the 
effort  of  a  nation  at  war.  Philosophers,  no  doubt,  on  both 
sides  did  something  to  maintain  their  nations'  morale,  ex- 
pounding their  ideals,  exhibiting  the  falsity  of  the  enemy's 
philosophies.  But,  in  the  main,  a  philosopher  capable  of 
bearing  arms,  seemed  able  to  serve  only  with  his  body,  not 
with  his  mind.  Whatever  the  value  of  philosophy  in  days 
of  peace,  much  of  it  was  inapplicable  in  the  emergencies  of 
war.  The  nations  at  war  could  make  little,  if  any,  use  of 
their  philosophers  except  as  propagandists,  and  propaganda 
too  often  proved  demoralising  to  philosophy. 

This  experience,  added  to  the  instability  of  the  existing 
order,  the  uncertainty  of  the  future,  the  perplexing  practical 
problems  which  beset  mankind  on  every  side,  has  given  a 
sting  to  that  call  for  self-criticism  to  which  philosophers  at 
no  time  have  been  wholly  deaf. 

Many  influences  are  thus  converging  upon  putting 
philosophers  out  of  humour  with  philosophy.  What  can  a 
philosopher  who,  in  this  mood,  faces  the  question  of  the 
nature  and  value  of  philosophy  do  to  reassure  himself? 
There  is,  it  would  seem,  only  one  way.  He  must  recall  to 
himself,  he  must  try  to  communicate  to  others,  what 
philosophy  is  like  as  an  experience  dominating  his  life,  as 
an  absorbing  occupation,  as  a  concentration  in  intense 
activity  of  his  whole  being.  What  is  wanted  is  not  some 
definition  of  philosophy,  not  some  catalogue  of  problems,  or 


io  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

drawing  of  boundary-lines  around  its  subject-matter,  not 
comparisons  with  science,  religion,  poetry.  These  touch 
the  fringes,  not  the  heart  of  the  matter.  Instead  of  asking, 
What  is  philosophy?  we  should  ask,  What  is  it  to  philoso- 
phise? Call  philosophy  an  enterprise,  an  experience,  an 
attitude,  as  you  will: — the  spirit  of  philosophy  as  it  is  ex- 
perienced by  the  thinkers  engaged  in  philosophising  is  what 
we  have  to  understand.  To  render  this  spirit,  we  must  not 
set  down  a  philosophical  system,  or  any  special  doctrines, 
which  have  been  gained  as  the  results  of  philosophising. 
Let  systems  and  results  be  as  different  as  they  may:  there 
is  an  acknowledged  kinship  of  philosophers  in  the  spirit 
of  their  enterprise.  This  spirit  is  open  to  recognition  in 
the  writings  of  philosophers:  it  forms  the  common  ground 
in  all  philosophical  discussions.  It  introduces  the  indi- 
vidual thinker  into  a  fellowship,  a  company,  a  communion 
of  men  engaged  in  the  same  endeavour  though  they  may 
disagree  about  its  very  scope  and  method.  "  Think  for 
yourself  " — "  Go  straight  to  the  facts."  These  are,  indeed, 
the  elementary  rules  for  learning  to  stand  intellectually  on 
one's  own  feet  and  not  to  philosophise  with  second-hand 
material.  But  they  would  be  dangerous  fallacies  if  they 
were  interpreted  to  mean  that  the  individual  has  nothing 
to  learn  from  others,  or  that  his  experiences  and  thoughts  do 
not  need  to  be  checked  by  comparison  with  those  of  others. 
Thinking  is  always  social;  its  typical  form  is  that  of  debate, 
and  even  the  single  thinker  in  his  solitary  meditations  is 
debating  with  himself.  This  is  why  philosophers  so  largely 
argue  at  and  for  each  other,  and  why  the  theories  of  the 
great  thinkers  of  the  past  retain  their  living  interest  for 
later  generations.  Eschewing  a  priori  assumptions  about 
what  philosophy  ought  to  be,  can  we  not  reflect  on  what  the 
spirit  of  philosophising  as  a  spontaneous  activity  in  ourselves 
and  others  actually  is? 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  n 

That  spirit  is  the  spirit  of  wholeness.  To  philosophise  is 
to  seek  an  attitude  towards  the  universe  as  a  whole,  or,  in 
so  far  as  the  search  at  all  succeeds,  to  have  such  an  attitude. 
What  does  this  mean?  It  cannot  mean  obviously,  that  the 
whole  of  the  universe  in  any  quantitative  sense  is  present  to 
the  thinker.  Quantitatively,  no  finite  mind  can  exhaust  the 
universe.  No  accumulation  of  experiences  would  bring  us 
appreciably  nearer  exhausting  the  inexhaustible.  There  is 
always  the  future  of  which  no  man  knows  what  it  may 
bring.  There  is  always  the  past  of  which  in  the  main  but 
a  few  sketchy,  shadowy  outlines  are  revealed  even  to  our 
most  patient  and  detailed  research.  There  is,  in  short,  the 
whole  immensity  of  space  and  time  to  bring  home  to  the 
individual  thinker  the  limitations  of  his  range,  to  make  him 
realise  that  what  he  effectively  grasps  of  the  universe  by  de- 
tailed exploration  is  but  a  fragment,  a  sample,  a  cross- 
section.  Wholeness,  thus,  is  not  to  be  understood  quanti- 
tatively, but  qualitatively.  It  consists,  at  the  very  least,  in 
that  quality  of  organisation  in  virtue  of  which  alone  we 
can  say  that  we  experience  a  "  universe "  or  live  in  a 
"  world."  Order,  correlation  of  differences,  system,  are 
aspects  of  it,  or  forms  of  it.  Without  it,  belief  and  conduct, 
our  judgments  and  our  actions,  would  be  equally  chaotic, 
contradictory,  mutually  destructive.  In  some  degree  it  is 
characteristic  of  the  life  of  every  mind.  In  a  greater  degree 
it  belongs  to  the  cooperative  achievements,  like  science,  or 
society,  in  which  many  minds  share.  The  explicit  effort  to 
achieve  the  maximum  possible  of  such  wholeness  is  philoso- 
phising. It  is,  thus,  a  continuation,  at  the  level  of  reflective 
thought,  of  a  principle  the  working  of  which  can  be  traced 
at  every  level  of  experience,  in  feeling  and  perceiving,  in 
reasoning  and  in  willing.  It  rests  on  the  fundamental  fact 
which  everyone  can  verify  for  himself,  that  experiences  are 
not  isolated  and  disconnected  but  expand  and  modify  each  ° 


12  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

other.    Each  illuminates  others,  gives  meaning  to  them,  de- 
rives meaning  from  them. 

This  fact  is  so  familiar  and  so  universal  that,  for  this 
very  reason,  its  presence  tends  to  pass  unnoticed,  its  im- 
portance to  remain  unappreciated.  It  is  hard  to  discriminate 
it  and  keep  attention  focused  upon  it  just  because  of  the 
infinite  variety  of  its  illustrations  which  every  moment  of 
conscious  life  affords.  Whenever  we  say  that  one  fact 
throws  light  on  others,  that  one  thing  helps  us  to  under- 
stand, or  do,  some  other  thing  better,  this  principle  of  organi- 
sation is  operative.  The  development  of  knowledge,  the 
growth  of  character  are  equally  instances  of  it.  When 
repeated  observations  of  the  same  object,  revealing  its 
different  qualities  and  modes  of  behaviour  under  different 
conditions,  yield  comprehensive  and  systematic  knowledge 
of  it;  when  countless  diverse  facts  suggest  and  verify  a 
theory  which  explains  them;  when  practice  brings  skill  in 
the  execution  of  a  movement;  when  habit  brings  economy 
of  time  and  thought;  when  interests  and  purposes  which 
might  conflict,  are  adjusted  to  each  other  on  a  scale  of 
relative  urgency  and  value,  with  much  discipline  of  desires 
and  feelings  in  the  process,  and  careful  control  of  conduct — 
the  quality  of  wholeness  is  displayed.  Yet  another  way  of 
pointing  it  out  is  to  remind  ourselves  that  experiences  do  not 
simply  come  and  go:  they  live  on,  they  endure,  they  are 
retained,  mostly  not  as  distinct  memories,  but  fused  into 
what  certain  psychologists  used  to  call  an  "  apperceptive 
system  ",  which  is  but  the  technical  name  for  the  power 
which  a  mind  acquires  to  assimilate  fresh  experiences,  to 
interpret  their  meaning,  respond  with  appropriate  action, 
and  to  learn  and  grow  in  this  very  process.  Indeed,  it  may 
fairly  be  said  that  the  principle  of  wholeness  is  most  obvi- 
ously manifest  in  all  learning  by  experience.  But  to  say 
that  there  is  learning  by,  and  from,  experience  is  to  say  that 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  13 

it  contains  a  lesson  to  be  discovered  and  elicited;  that  ex- 
perience has  something  to  teach  or  to  reveal.  To  philoso- 
phise is  nothing  but  the  sustained  attempt  to  elicit  this 
lesson,  to  focus  and  concentrate  experience  systematically — 
what  else  but  this  is  reflection  and  speculation? — and  to 
state  its  message  and  its  meaning  in  the  form  of  a  coherent 
theory. 

If  we  want  a  provisional  formula  for  the  topic  of  this 
lesson,  any  one  of  the  many  current  descriptions  of  the 
object  of  the  philosopher's  quest  will  do  as  well  as  any  other. 
We  can  put  it,  if  we  please,  as  the  universe  and  man's 
place  in  it;  as  man,  the  world,  and  God;  as  nature,  self,  and 
the  reality  which  includes  them  both;  as  the  order  of  ap- 
pearances in  the  universe.  But  if  such  formulae  are  to 
have  any  value  as  conveying  the  spirit  of  philosophy,  they 
must  be  interpreted  as  pointing  us,  by  the  mention  of  cer- 
tain objects,  to  the  central  and  dominant  types  of  experi- 
ence in  which  these  objects  reveal  themselves,  come  to  be 
known,  and  to  determine  behaviour.  And,  even  so,  a  cata- 
logue of  objects  and  experiences  names  rather  the  data  or 
materials  for  philosophising,  than  the  effort  at  synthesis,  or 
synopsis,  which  acknowledges  at  bottom  but  one  "  object " 
— call  it,  as  we  will,  reality,  God,  the  absolute,  the  universe, 
the  whole. 

The  spirit  of  philosophy,  then,  as  exhibited  in  philosophis- 
ing, is  the  highest  form  of  the  principle  of  wholeness  which 
is  present  throughout  the  life  of  mind  wherever  something  is 
being  learnt  in,  and  from,  experience.  Philosophy  thus  is 
continuous  with  the  rest  of  experience,  as,  indeed,  it  must 
be,  if  it  is  the  effort  to  grasp  reflectively  its  quintessence. 
At  the  same  time,  it  has  its  specific  character  and  is  dis- 
tinguished from  other  forms  of  experience  in  that  it  is  the 
explicit,  self-conscious,  and  therefore  completest,  form  of 
the  operation  of  the  principle  of  wholeness.  For  it  is  at 


14  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.I 

least  the  aim  of  philosophical  theory  to  satisfy  that  principle 
most  fully,  alike  in  comprehensiveness  and  in  systematisa- 
tion. 


The  data  and  materials  for  philosophical  reflection, 
again,  are  not  the  crude  and  chaotic  experiences  of  im- 
mature minds,  but  the  already  highly  organised  systems  of 
experience  in  which  mature  minds  participate  through  their 
feelings,  thoughts,  and  actions.  We  must  have  art,  science, 
religion,  social  and  political  life,  and  all  these  in  various 
degrees  and  forms,  before  a  situation  can  arise  in  which  the 
need  for  philosophising  in  the  proper  sense  is  felt;  before 
the  peculiar  problems  present  themselves  whicn  supply  the 
persistent  occasion  and  stimulus  for  philosophising.  This 
situation,  these  problems,  arise  from  the  contradictions  and 
conflicts  between  these  several  types  of  experience,  or  within 
each  of  them,  which  threaten  to  defeat  the  demand  for 
wholeness,  consistency,  order.  The  effort  of  philosophical 
reflection  is  then  directed  in  part  upon  eliciting  the  es- 
sence, or  real  nature,  of  each  type  of  experience,  by  grading 
the  examples  of  it  so  as  to  study  those  which  exhibit  the 
nature  of  each  at  its  best,  most  fully,  most  characteristically. 
This  is  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said  that  philosophy  is  not 
content  with  first  appearances  but  seeks  the  ultimately  real; 
that. it  does  not  stay  at  the  surface,  but  penetrates  to  the 
deeper  meaning.  Behind  these  formulae  lies  the  simple 
fact,  once  more  easily  verifiable  for  the  looking,  that  the 
examples,  instances,  cases,  of  a  quality,  nature,  law  (in 
short  of  a  universal)  commonly  can  be  graded  according 
as  they  exhibit  that  universal  character  more  or  less  ade- 
quately, and  that  the  standard  of  interpretation  must  be 
taken  from  the  examples  which  show  the  character  at  its 
best.  More  particularly,  anything  which,  like  mind,  is  in 
process  of  evolution,  requires  this  analysis  from  the  top 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  15 

downwards.    But,  further,  the  task  of  philosophy  is  to  point 
out  by  analysis  of  the  bearing  upon  each  other  of  conflicting 
types  of  experience,  how  their  conflict  is  actually  overcome, 
and  how,  therefore,  in  principle  it  admits  of  solution.    Here 
is  the  place  to  acknowledge  that  the  spirit  of  wholeness 
meets,  apparently,  with  its  most  formidable  defeats  through 
its  very  triumphs.     Its  successes  in  organising  orders  of 
experience  produce  the  acutest  contradictions  and  antino- 
mies.   Life  threatens  to  remain  chaotic  in  a  chaotic  world 
so  long  as  the  very  systems  of  order  which  supply  its  frame- 
work, impose  incompatible  judgments  and  actions  upon  us. 
A  unified  life  is  possible  only  in  a  unified  world;  in  a  cosmos, 
not  in  a  chaos.    To  philosophise  is,  therefore,  to  seek  to 
translate  the  implicit  conviction  of  order  into  explicit  in- 
sight, to  show  that  the  lesson  of  experience,  taken  com- 
prehensively in  range  but  with  the  best  of  each  type  as 
the  clue  to  interpretation,  yields  and  sustains  this  insight. 
Perhaps  the  most  fundamental  antinomy,  we  might  even  say 
predicament,  which  runs  through  modern  civilisation  and 
carries  conflict  and  perplexity  into  the  thought  and  conduct 
of  modern  men,  is  that  between  science  and  religion,  be- 
tween   facts   and    values,    between    the   actual    and    the 
ideal,  between  nature  and  spirit.    A  closely  allied  predica- 
ment arises  from  the  existence  of  evil  and  the  divergent 
attitudes  towards  it  of  morality  and  religion.    If  the  moral 
life  is  essentially  a  fight  against  evil,  an  effort  to  perfect 
an  imperfect  world,  how  is  it  compatible  with  religion,  i.e., 
with  the  worship  due  only  to  that  which  is  perfect?    Yet 
another  predicament  is  always  present,  and  always  liable 
to  become  acute,  in  the  relations  of  the  individual  to  the 
community  of  which  he  is  a  member,  when,  e.g.,  the  indi- 
vidual's conscience  condemns  the  public  action  which  is  done 
in  his  name  and  in  which  he  may  be  called  upon  to  take  an 
active  part.    All  such  situations,  sometimes  for  the  sake  of 


16  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

unified  conduct,  always  for  the  sake  of  unified  theory, 
operate  as  stimuli  for  discovering  by  reflection  a  more  com- 
prehensive point  of  view,  in  which  the  divergent  ways  of 
thinking  and  acting  may  be  brought  together  and  adjusted 
so  that  unity,  consistency,  wholeness  are  recovered,  or, 
rather,  are  brought  to  light. 

In  this  sense,  then,  to  repeat  it  once  more,  to  philosophise 
is  to  seek  to  apprehend  the  universe  as  a  whole,  and  to  em- 
ploy all  the  resources  of  experience  in  this  task,  taking  each 
type  of  experience  at  its  best,  when  its  lesson  is  clearest,  and 
learning  most  from  those  experiences  which  in  range  and 
organisation  emancipate  us  most  from  superficial  first  im- 
pressions and  lead  us  deepest  into  the  heart  of  reality. 
Finality  in  this  enterprise  no  philosopher  has  a  right  to  ex- 
pect, for  fresh  developments  in  experience,  new  scientific 
theories,  new  religious  movements,  profound  social  and 
political  changes,  will  continue  to  present  the  familiar  an- 
tinomies in  ever  fresh  forms.  The  predicaments  to  which 
philosophising  is  the  response,  renew  themselves  in  each  gen- 
eration, and  the  effort  to  deal  with  them  needs  a  correspond- 
ing renewal.  But  if  there  is  no  finality  in  the  sense  of  a 
termination,  there  is  a  stability  which  comes  from  the  pos- 
session of  an  insight  which  as  much  enables  the  philosopher 
to  interpret  fresh  experiences  aright,  as  it  is  itself  confirmed 
and  sustained  by  these  experiences. 

This  account  of  the  spirit  of  philosophy  may  provoke 
the  contention  that  wholeness  is  predicable,  not  of  the  uni- 
verse as  a  fact,  but  only  of  the  philosopher's  point  of  view 
as  an  aspiration;  that  it  means  wholeness  of  attitude  rather 
than  attitude  towards  a  whole;  that  it  is  subjective  and 
psychological,  not  objective  and  metaphysical;  an  intel- 
lectual demand  or  ideal,  not  an  actual,  or  at  least  not  a 
verifiable,  character  of  the  nature  of  things.  The  universe, 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  17 

it  may  be  urged,  cannot  be  apprehended  by  us  as  a  whole, 
for,  not  knowing  all  of  it,  how  can  we  know  that  it  is  a 
"  whole  "  at  all?  We  have  no  rigfit  to  give  it  that  name;  at 
most  we  may  speak  of  it  only  as  if  it  were  a  whole.  As  it 
comes  to  us  in  experience,  it  is  sufficiently  chaotic  to  stamp 
the  suggestion  of  its  all-pervading  orderliness  as,  at  best,  an 
hypothesis — a  "  regulative  ideal,"  in  Kant's  language — for 
thought  and  conduct,  not  an  objective  truth.  This  conten- 
tion may  be  variously  developed.  So  far  as  wholeness  is  a 
fact,  it  consists,  it  may  be  said,  in  the  effective  organisa- 
tion by  a  mind  of  its  experiences  so  as  to  achieve  and  ac- 
quire a  stable,  consistent  disposition  of  thought  and  action 
towards  nature,  fellowmen,  and  God  (if  there  is  a  God).  To 
reflect  this  subjective  wholeness  upon  the  universe  is  illu- 
sion and  make-believe,  conscious  or  unconscious.  It  is 
arbitrary  and  artificial.  It  succeeds,  so  far  as  it  does  suc- 
ceed, by  selecting  exclusively  those  features  of  the  universe 
which  lend  themselves  to  being  ordered,  and  shutting  one's 
eyes  to  the  abundance  of  negative  evidence.  Bold  pragma- 
tists  may  even  glory  in  this  forcible  imposition  of  order  on 
a  disorderly  world.  The  world  is,  or  can  be  made  to  become, 
what  we  would  have  it  be.  If  we  but  consistently  will  to 
believe  in  its  orderliness,  then  orderly  it  is.  "  Faith  hi  a 
fact  helps  create  that  fact ".  Others  regard  the  belief  in 
objective  order  as  an  escape  from  intolerable  actualities  into 
the  purer  world  of  imagination.  Philosophy,  like  art,  is  to 
them  an  escape  from  the  real.  The  dreams  of  metaphysic- 
ians offer  a  vicarious  satisfaction  for  wishes  which  the 
actual  world  cruelly  represses  and  frustrates. 

Against  this  view,  in  all  its  variations,  it  must  be  urged 
that  it  involves  an  ultimate  dualism,  a  discord  in  the  uni- 
verse, a  discord  in  our  lives.  Actual  chaos  confronts  imagi- 
nary order.  And  whether  we  regard  the  universe  as  plastic 
or  as  hostile  to  human  desires  and  ideals,  whether  we  deal 


i8  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

with  it  in  robust  pragmatic  aggressiveness,  or  in  self-pity 
console  ourselves  with  metaphysical  fancies,  in  either  case 
a  dualism  remains.  No  unity  of  mental  attitude  which  is  not 
supported  by  the  facts,  which  is  not  rooted  in  the  nature 
of  things,  will  do.  Unless  the  universe  is  a  whole,  it  is 
meaningless  to  talk  of  seeking  an  attitude  towards  it  as  a 
whole.  The  "  point  of  view  of  the  whole  "  is  not  an  idle 
phrase.  It  means  that  the  conviction  of  the  wholeness  of 
the  universe  is  a  lesson  of  experience,  is  taught  us  by  the 
logic  of  the  facts.  It  claims  that  experiences,  drawn  to- 
gether by  reflection,  focused  so  as  to  interpret  each  other 
and  thus  reveal  their  common  and  total  meaning,  supply  the 
evidence  which  justifies  the  conviction  of  unity  and  order. 
Successful  organisation  of  experiences  means  that  the  order 
inherent  in  them  is  discovered  and  revealed.  The  universe 
is  the  common  "  object ",  or  point  of  reference,  of  all  our 
experiences.  It  and  its  nature  are  revealed  in  all  of  them. 
But  the  fullest  revelation  of  it,  its  real  nature,  its  char- 
acter as  a  whole,  is  displayed  only  in  so  far  as  its  partial 
revelations  are  brought  together  so 'as  to  supplement,  cor- 
rect, interpret  each  other.  The  thinking  and  theorising 
which  yields  such  a  revelation,  or  insight,  is  neither  a  run- 
ning away  from  reality,  nor  a  "  making  of  reality  "  in  the 
image  of  human  wishes.  It  is  a  seeking  of  reality  by  elicit- 
ing from  experience  as  a  whole  its  revelation  of  reality  as  a 
whole.  It  requires  an  openness  of  mind  which,  whilst  reject- 
ing no  evidence,  relies  with  due  discrimination  on  the  most 
significant  and  illuminating  experiences,  rarer  though  they 
may  be  than  the  surface  moods  and  judgments  of  every- 
day life.  Above  all,  it  will  eschew  one-sidedness,  and  be 
on  its  guard  against  the  danger  of  having  its  intellectual 
balance  weighed  down,  contrary  to  the  standards  of  propor- 
tionateness,  by  some  fragmentary  aspects  of  life,  however 
intense  and  impressive.  Philosophising  is  the  pursuit  of  a 


Ch.  I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  19 

will-o'-the-wisp,  unless  the  philosopher  can  rely  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole  range  of  experience 
which  does  not,  in  its  own  degree  and  measure,  help  to 
reveal  the  nature  of  the  universe. 

The  universe,  to  put  it  succinctly,  is  always  with  us,  in 
us,  around  us.  Every  thrill  of  experience  attests  its  pres- 
ence; compels — in  the  language  of  highly  reflective  theory — 
acceptance  of  the  judgment  that  something  exists.  What 
exists?  What  is  this  something?  To  these  questions,  experi- 
ence in  all  its  forms  supplies  the  answer,  or,  at  least,  the 
materials  for  an  answer.  Philosophical  thinking  is  the 
endeavour  to  elicit  from  these  materials  a  revelation  of  the 
whole  nature  of  the  universe,  which  shall  be  as  coherent 
and  complete  as  we  can  obtain. 

In  the  light  of  this  analysis  of  what  it  is  to  philosophise, 
we  can  understand  why  now,  as  in  the  past,  "  philosophy  " 
has  been  used  in  many  different  senses,  and  why,  nonethe- 
less, these  different  senses,  as  every  student  of  the  history 
of  philosophy  knows,  are  all  connected,  somewhat  like  varia- 
tions on  a  single  theme,  or  like  different  solutions  of  a 
single  problem.  If  the  tree  of  philosophy  has  many  diver- 
gent branches,  yet  is  there  a  single  trunk  from  which  they 
all  spring.  All  sorts  of  men  have  set  out  to  be  "  lovers  of 
wisdom ",  and  the  manner  of  their  loving  has  been  no 
less  varied  than  the  things  which  they  have  loved  as  "  wis- 
dom." There  is  room  in  the  enterprise  of  philosophising 
for  all  kinds  of  temperaments  and  all  kinds  of  experiences, 
and  each  individual  thinker  draws  upon  the  culture  and 
science,  the  economic,  political,  religious  substance  of  con- 
temporary life.  Proverbially  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a 
world:  certainly  the  world  takes  all  sorts  to  make  philoso- 
phers. Or  to  put  the  same  thing  in  the  mathematical  lan- 
guage now  fashionable:  the  function  of  philosophising  is 


20  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.I 

everywhere  the  same,  but  there  are  many  values  for  its 
variables.  Our  "  wisdom  "  may  be  social  service,  or  it  may 
be  individual  development.  It  may  beckon  to  us  as  the 
refined  pleasure  of  the  Epicurean,  or  as  the  stern  discipline 
of  the  Stoic.  To  some  it  lies  in  the  faith,  indistinguishable 
for  them  from  knowledge,  that  the  world  is  perfect.  To 
others  it  lies  in  labouring  hopefully  for  its  perfecting.  Yet 
others  find  their  wisdom  in  facing  unflinchingly  the  fact 
that  it  is  neither  perfect  nor  perfectible,  but  demands,  even 
so,  that  men  be  loyal  to  ideals  doomed  never  to  be 
realised. 

Thus  not  only  does  the  emphasis  fall  differently  among 
lovers  of  wisdom,  but  some  exclude  what  others  include. 
Some  achieve  unity,  or  wholeness,  at  a  greater  cost  and 
sacrifice  than  others.  Some  are  more  balanced  and  well- 
rounded  natures,  others  are  more  fragmentary  and  one- 
sided, perhaps  even  divided  against  themselves,  torn  by 
some  inner  conflict — of  mysticism,  it  may  be,  and  science; 
of  intellect  and  emotion  or  desire.  Yet  all  are  fellow- 
travellers  in  the  same  spiritual  pilgrimage,  bent  upon  the 
same  goal. 

What  is  this  goal? 

Above  we  have  already  characterised  it,  in  general  terms, 
as  the  spirit  of  wholeness.  Here  we  may  express  it,  from  a 
somewhat  different  angle,  by  saying  that  every  philosopher, 
whatever  his  resources  of  insight  and  character,  wants  to 
discover,  and  to  live,  the  life  worth  living.  Every  lover 
of  wisdom  wants  to  learn  what  wisdom  is  and  to  make  it 
the  actual  quality  of  his  living.  His  interest  is  both  theoreti- 
cal and  practical.  He  is  both  spectator  and  agent.  In- 
deed, it  is  only  for  exposition's  sake  that  we  can  thus 
verbally  contrast  these  two  sides.  In  fact,  knowing  and 
doing  are  not  thus  separable  in  the  pursuit  of  philosophy. 
For  thinking,  too,  is  a  way  of  doing,  of  occupying  oneself, 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  2i 

of  spending  one's  life,  and  the  ways  of  doing  which  are 
not  theoretical  or  contemplative,  are  the  better  for  catching 
something  of  the  spirit  of  selflessness  which  occupation 
with  eternal  truths  brings  into  the  fret  and  stress  of  practical 
life.  Vice  versa,  only  he  who  has  lived  deeply  and  broadly, 
has  at  his  disposal  rich  and  varied  resources  for  meditation. 
There  is  indeed  a  theory  according  to  which  the  end  of  all 
theory  is  action,  and  "  propositions  of  practice  "  the  truths 
most  worth  discovering.  There  is  also  an  opposite  theory 
according  to  which  the  thing  most  worth  doing  is  to  theorise. 
This  is  but  another  instance  of  those  differences  of  emphasis 
in  the  pursuit  of  wisdom  which  are  inevitable  so  long  as  men 
are  not,  in  their  spiritual  make-up,  mere  repetitions  of  the 
same  pattern,  and  so  long  as  each  age,  each  historical  type 
of  civilisation,  has  its  own  distinctive  spiritual  needs. 

The  identification  of  the  problem  of  wisdom  with  the 
problem  of  the  life  worth  living  throws  light  on  the  con- 
nection between  philosophy  and  value.  A  philosopher,  it 
is  agreed,  is  above  all  else  a  "  thinker."  Thinking  is  his 
business  in  life.  What  kind  of  thinking,  then,  is  most  worth 
while?  What  kind  of  employment  of  his  intellect  is  most 
valuable?  The  answer  can  hardly  be  given  except  in  terms 
of  the  objects,  occupation  with  which  is  the  best  use  a 
thinker  can  make  of  his  capacity  for  thinking.  Instead  of 
"  objects  ",  we  might  equally  say  "  problems ",  or  even 
"  truths."  The  important  thing  to  recognise  is  that,  if  there 
is  a  capacity  for  thinking,  there  is  also  a  specific  need  for 
it — a  need  not  merely  practical,  but  contemplative  or  crea- 
tive. And  if  such  thinking  has  value,  it  is  because  it  is  con- 
cerned, fundamentally,  with  value.  To  discern  values  and 
to  realise  them:  to  appreciate  them  where  they  do  exist  and 
to  bring  them  into  existence  where  they  do  not — this  cer- 
tainly is  demanded  of  the  lover  of  wisdom.  To  appreciate 


22  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  I 

and  recognise  and  forward  what  there  is  of  value  in  the 
world;  to  see,  perchance,  in  the  end  that  nothing  is  wholly 
devoid  of  value — this  is  the  employment  of  thought  which 
is  itself  most  valuable  and  which  makes  the  thinker's  life 
itself  worth  while.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  in  thus 
describing  the  philosopher's  programme  and  quest,  we  are 
but  carrying  a  step  further  what  we  said  above  about  whole- 
ness, order,  organisation.  For  not  only  is  order  itself  a  type 
of  value,  but  the  reconciliation  of  "  fact  "  and  "  value  "  is 
the  gravest  problem  which  confronts  the  seeker  after  whole- 
ness. Here,  again,  we  meet  with  differences  of  emphasis  and 
inclusiveness.  Are  all  things  actual  also  invested  with 
value?  Does  only  desire  confer  value  on  things?  Are 
values  concretely  embodied  only  in  things  made  to  satisfy 
desire?  Questions  such  as  these  stand  at  the  threshold 
of  every  inquiry  into  value,  but  once  we  step  across  the 
threshold,  there  is  no  stopping-place  short  of  the  problems  of 
evil  and  of  the  relation  of  morality  to  religion.  Thus  here, 
once  more,  thinking  is  true  to  its  character  of  seeking  al- 
ways the  whole  and  being  genuinely  satisfied  with  nothing 
short  of  the  whole.  Indeed,  ever  since  Plato  set  up  the 
"  Form  of  the  Good  "  as  the  supreme  principle  of  being 
and  knowing,  an  unbroken  line  of  philosophers  has  recorded 
this  conviction,  that  the  deepest  need  of  our  intellectual 
nature  is  for  a  reconciliation  of  fact  and  value,  for  a  rea- 
soned insight  into  their  unity.  And  we  may  add  that  not  to 
achieve  such  a  unity,  not  at  least  to  believe  it  possible,  is  to 
break  with  every  great  religion.  But  the  roads  to  freedom 
by  which,  with  Spinoza  and  the  mystics,  we  mean  here  pre- 
cisely this  inward  unity  and  reconciliation,  are  many,  and 
we  have  as  little  right  to  lay  down  one  rigid  pattern  of  free- 
dom as  we  have  a  right  to  lay  down  a  pattern  of  wisdom. 
It  is  enough  to  acknowledge  the  spiritual  kinship  in  diverse 
doctrines  and  lives. 


Ch.I]  THE  PHILOSOPHER'S  QUEST  23 

Yet  another  way  of  expressing  this  love  of  wisdom  which 
marks  the  philosopher  is  to  say  that  he  strives  for  stability 
in  thought  and  feeling  and  action.  On  its  emotional  side, 
we  all  know  what  is  meant  by  this  "  stability  ": — the  peace 
of  mind  which  comes  with  understanding  even  if  in  the  end 
it  surpasses  understanding;  the  harmony  within  oneself; 
the  confidence,  not  so  much  in  oneself,  or  in  human  power 
to  master  the  world,  or  in  the  world  as  being,  by  happy 
chance,  kind  to  men,  but  in  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  world 
and  in  one's  own  life  as  sharing  in,  and  helping  to  sus- 
tain, that  value.  But  this  stability  for  a  thinker  must  be 
intellectual  as  well — scientia  intuitiva  no  less  than  amor 
intellectualis.  Wonder,  curiosity,  perplexity,  contradiction, 
conflict  of  theories,  conflict  of  feelings  and  desires,  lack  of 
understanding,  lack  of  self-knowledge  and  self-mastery — in 
all  these  ways  come  discord  and  instability.  The  goal  of 
the  philosopher  is  in  its  reflective  form  a  theory,  a  Weltan- 
schauung; in  its  practical  form  an  habitual  attitude  or  dis- 
position of  response;  a  power  to  meet  and  master  whatever 
comes — elastic,  adaptable,  resourceful,  yet  steadfast,  in- 
trepid, unshaken;  a  self-adjusting  equilibrium  of  insight 
into  the  true  values  of  things,  which  in  the  greatest  becomes 
the  very  spirit  of  their  living. 

Is  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  in  this  sense  worth  while? 

Those  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  it  have  found  it 
so;  and  they  alone  are  in  a  position  to  judge. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

A  PHILOSOPHER,  we  said,  is  a  thinker,  but  he  is  also,  and  for 
this  very  reason,  a  seer.  He  has  his  distinctive  view  or 
vision  of  the  world,  and  it  is  only  by  hard  thinking  that  he 
has  gained  and  now  possesses  it.  Insight  and  intuition  on 
the  one  hand,  thought  and  reason  (which  cover  here  every- 
thing from  analysis  and  inference  to  argument  and  dialec- 
tics), on  the  other,  are  commonly  regarded  as  the  two  poles 
of  the  philosophical  attitude.  Not  infrequently  they  are 
opposed  to  each  other  even  by  philosophers.  It  is  then  said 
that  there  are  two  ways  of  knowing:  intuition  and  intellect, 
or  immediate  experience  and  reflection,  or  knowledge  by 
acquaintance  and  knowledge  by  description.  Frequently 
one  of  these  ways  is  deprecated  for  the  glorification  of  the 
other.  More  particularly  the  nature,  function,  and  value 
of  thinking  have  become  topics  of  burning  discussion  among 
present-day  philosophers,  and  the  debate  has  spread  to  such 
allied  problems  as  whether,  and  how,  philosophical  theories 
can  be  proved  or  demonstrated;  whether  such  theories  are 
to  be  regarded  as  tentative  guess-work  or  as  deeper  knowl- 
edge; and,  in  short,  what  is  the  proper  method  of  philosophy. 
Fundamentally,  we  shall  surely  agree,  William  James  was 
right,  when  he  spoke  of  philosophies  as  "just  so  many 
visions,  modes  of  feeling  the  whole  push,  and  seeing  the 
whole  drift  of  life  ";  *  right,  too,  when  he  went  on  to  say 
that  these  visions  are  "  forced  on  one  by  one's  total  char- 
acter and  experience,  and  on  the  whole  preferred  ...  as 

1A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  20. 

24 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  25 

one's  best  working  attitude  'V  Forced  and  preferred — it 
seems  a  startling  contradiction.  It  is  as  if  one  were  com- 
pelled to  choose  in  one  way  and  in  no  other.  Yet  is  not 
this  precisely  the  way  in  which  philosophical  convictions 
come  to  be  formed?  The  varied  aspects  of  the  universe 
press  upon  the  individual  thinker.  Alternative  syntheses 
suggest  themselves  to  him,  many  of  them  backed  by  the 
authority  of  a  great  name,  but  the  one  which,  in  the  end, 
he  adopts  is  the  one  which  he  cannot  help  adopting.  It  is 
the  one  which  he  is  obliged  to  adopt  if  he  is  to  be  true  to 
himself,  and  this  means  true  to  the  total  revelation  of  the 
universe  to  him  through  his  experience.  Thus  he  comes  by 
his  vision,  his  world-view,  his  Weltanschauung.  "  A  man's 
vision  is  the  great  fact  about  him  " 2 — yes,  and  the  vision 
includes  the  reasons  which  James  says  we  do  not  care  about. 
We  cannot  share  the  vision,  unless  we  share,  or  supply  our- 
selves, the  reasoning  which  yields  the  vision. 

It  is  no  mere  accident  that  the  language  in  which  we 
describe  thinking  is  full  of  metaphors  taken  from  sight,  eye, 
and  light.  A  theory  is  a  way  of  looking  at  things.  Good 
thinking  must  be  clear  and  lucid.  Truth  must  be  perceived. 
A  conclusion  must  be  seen  to  be  implied  in  the  premises. 
Experiences  illuminate  each  other.  Insight,  intuition,  the 
vivid  appreciation  or  realisation  of  all  that  a  given  experi- 
ence means  and  conveys — what  would  philosophising  be 
without  these?  They  are  its  end,  even  more  than  its  begin- 
ning. The  most  valuable  insights,  as  a  rule,  are  the  result 
of  philosophising,  rather  than  its  starting-point,  though 
sometimes  the  insight  into  some  central  problem  becomes 
the  nucleus  around  which  a  whole  system  crystallises. 
Argument  is  but  a  method  of  getting  fresh  insights,  a  gath- 
ering of  materials  from  which  the  vision  must  spring,  and  a 
method  of  communicating  and  sharing  one's  vision,  an  at- 

1 A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  21. 
2  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  20. 


26  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

tempt  to  direct  another  mind  to  seeing  the  world  in  the  same 
way.  And,  again,  it  is  through  argument,  through  reasoning 
with  oneself  or  with  others,  that  one's  insights  get  tested, 
connected,  stabilised.  Thus  the  intuitional  character  is 
present  everywhere,  though  it  is  in  no  way  sacrosanct  or 
removed  beyond  the  reach  of  criticism.  The  eliciting  of  a 
fuller  insight  out  of  partial  ones  is  precisely  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  systematic  philosophising. 

This  is,  of  course,  the  point  where  individual  differences 
come  into  play,  where  diversities  in  dominant  mood,  in 
temperament,  in  character,  in  the  experiences  which  are  the 
thinker's  materials,  lead  to  disagreement,  to  failure  to  see 
eye  to  eye.  Yet  failure  to  agree  is  not  necessarily  failure  to 
understand.  Most  commonly  when  philosophers  disagree, 
it  is  because  each  claims  that  what  the  other  insists  upon 
is  included  in  his  own  view,  but  supplemented,  corrected, 
presented  in  a  truer  form.  In  any  case,  the  paradoxical  fact 
remains  that,  in  order  to  argue  effectively  against  another, 
one  must  put  oneself  at  his  point  of  view.  In  this  way 
the  philosopher's  intellectual  world  is  enriched  by  the  pres- 
ence in  it,  and  the  pressure  upon  it,  of  the  very  visions 
which  he  may  vigorously  challenge  and  combat.  And,  apart 
from  that,  he  would  be  a  poor  philosopher  in  whom  the 
failure  to  share  another's  vision  did  not  keep  alive  a  humble 
conviction  of  the  likelihood  of  defects  in  his  own,  of  some 
poverty  in  it  of  range,  some  lack  of  penetration.  Grant 
that  philosophies  are  as  full  of  an  intensely  personal  at- 
mosphere as  poems,  and  that  their  sharp  differences  spring 
from  this  fact,  still  it  would  be  a  loss  in  the  main  to  make 
philosophising  impersonal,  and  to  demand  uniformity  for  the 
sake  of  agreement.  It  would  seem  rather  that  the  universe 
has  a  use,  so  to  speak,  for  these  very  differences,  through 
which  ever  fresh  nuances  of  experience  are  expressed  and 
tried  out.  "  Philosophies  are  intimate  parts  of  the  universe. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  2 7 

They  express  something  of  its  own  thought  of  itself.  A 
philosophy  may  indeed  be  a  most  momentous  reaction  of 
the  universe  upon  itself."  x  Press  this,  and  the  existence  of 
differences  acquires  positive  significance,  is  transformed 
from  a  defect  into  a  merit.  Moreover,  with  all  their  marked 
individuality,  philosophies  fall  into  "  schools  ",  exhibit  com- 
mon tendencies,  are  affiliated  by  descent  in  the  sense  of  in- 
fluence of  earlier  on  later  thinkers.  We  tend  to  under- 
estimate, in  the  midst  of  our  polemics,  the  extent  of  our 
common  ground.  Indeed,  without  a  common  ground,  how 
could  we  relevantly  disagree?  And  if  it  is  a  pleasure  to  hit 
on  a  theory  all  one's  own  which  no  one  else  has  ever  thought 
of,  it  is  also  a  pleasure,  a  very  pure  one,  and  not  rare,  to 
find  one's  independent  thinking  confirmed  by  the  discovery 
that  other  thinkers,  contemporaries  or  predecessors,  had 
explored  the  same  problem  with  the  same  result.  Truth 
gains,  though  vanity  may  suffer. 

And,  lastly,  the  insistence  on  the  quality  of  insight  or 
vision  in  philosophising  may  serve  to  remind  us  that  philos- 
ophical argument  of  the  best  sort  is  material,  not  formal. 
It  seeks  to  use  the  very  stuff  and  substance  of  actual  expe- 
rience as  its  datum.  "  The  best  of  logic  "  and  "  the  best 
of  life  "  are  its  watchwords.2  These  two  must  go  together 
in  philosophising,  for  the  quality  of  its  logic  is  to  be  judged, 
not  merely  by  the  technical  correctness  of  its  inferences, 
but  also  and  even  more  by  the  quality  of  its  premises. 
There  is  an  analogous  situation  in  legal  thinking  which  may 
illustrate  the  point.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  to  lawyers  that 
technical  justice,  in  the  sense  of  logically  correct  applica- 
tion of  a  law  to  a  case,  may  be  in  effect  actual  injustice  of 
a  grievous  kind.  Hence  the  appearance  of  equity  as  a 

1 A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  317.  Thus  wrote  the  same  James  who 
never  tired  of  dwelling  on  the  temperamental  idiosyncrasies  of  philos- 
ophers and  philosophies. 

2  B.  Bosanquet,  The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value,  passim. 


28  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

higher,  so  to  speak  a  juster,  justice;  hence  the  revolt  among 
recent  writers  on  the  science  of  legal  method  against  mere 
"  logic  ";  hence  the  demand  for  a  tempering  of  logic  by 
considerations  of  social  utility,  humanity,  tact.1  So  in 
philosophy:  the  use  of  experiences  defective  in  range  and 
quality,  however  formally  correct  that  use  may  be,  still 
means  inferior  philosophising  in  the  end.  On  this  point 
there  is  much  which  we  can  still  with  profit  learn  from  the 
education  and  practical  experience  by  which  Plato  proposed 
to  train,  and  the  moral  and  intellectual  qualifications  which 
he  required  in,  the  "  lovers  of  wisdom  "  who  were  to  be 
the  guardians  of  his  ideal  commonwealth.  Truth  demands 
more  than  ingenuity  or  than  formal  consistency  in  rea- 
soning. These,  no  doubt,  belong  to  the  technique  of 
the  philosopher's  craft.  But  unless  the  material  quality 
of  the  would-be  philosopher's  data  be  of  the  right  sort, 
skill  in  dialectics  will  not  give  him  the  fundamental 
insights. 

If  this  be  true,  it  follows  that  improvements,  or  at  least 
innovations,  in  philosophical  technique  alone,  however 
valuable  they  may  be  in  themselves,  will  not  bring  about 
the  salvation  of  philosophy.  None  the  less  philosophers 
have  again  and  again  pinned  their  hopes  to  some  reform  in 
method.  Ever  since  Bacon  with  his  Novum  Organum,  and 
Descartes  with  his  method  of  doubt,  ushered  in  the  period 
of  "  modern  "  philosophy,  the  problem  of  the  right  method 
or  technique  of  conducting  the  enterprise  of  philosophy  has 
been  with  us.  Kant  was  not  the  first,  as  he  certainly  has 
not  been  the  last,  to  raise  the  question,  why  hitherto  philos- 
ophy had  failed  to  enter,  like  physics  or  astronomy,  on  the 
sure  and  steady  path  of  a  science.  At  the  present  day,  the 
spectacle  of  the  progress  of  the  natural  sciences  and  of 

1  Cf.  the  author's  review  of  The  Science  of  Legal  Method  in  the 
Harvard  Law  Review,  vol.  xxxi,  no.  5  (March,  1918). 


Ch.  II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  29 

mathematics  has  once  again  brought  the  problem  of  method 
to  the  very  forefront  of  discussion.  Once  more  philoso- 
phers point  to  the  sciences  as  models  to  be  imitated.  Their 
triumphs,  their  unbroken  advance  from  success  to  success, 
must  be  due,  it  is  held,  to  their  method.  How  else  account 
for  the  fact  that  the  sciences  obtain  results  which  command 
the  assent  of  all  who  are  competent  to  form  an  opinion, 
whilst  there  is  hardly  an  important  philosophical  theory, 
and  certainly  no  philosophical  system,  which  does  not  ex- 
hibit its  author's  temperament  and  idiosyncrasy,  and  from 
which  other  thinkers,  no  less  competent,  violently  dissent? 
Must  not  the  fault  lie  in  the  failure  to  employ  the  right 
method  in  philosophising?  Does  not  the  only  hope  for 
the  future  of  philosophy  lie  in  becoming  "  scientific  "? 

It  is  a  tempting  suggestion.  We  hardly  know  how  to 
resist  it,  for  the  spell  of  science  is  upon  us  all.  Science 
has  as  firmly  put  its  stamp  upon  the  intellectual  culture  and 
the  practical  organisation  of  our  time,  as  ever  had  theology 
upon  the  civilisation  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  peace  and  in 
war  our  lives  rest  upon  the  use  of  manifold  appliances 
which  science  has  put  at  our  disposal.  Bacon's  scientia 
est  potentia  has  become  our  watchword.  To  control  the 
forces  of  nature  by  the  study  of  nature's  laws  to  the  end  of 
the  "  improvement  of  man's  estate " — this  is  being  ac- 
claimed as  the  dominant  temper  of  the  "  modern  "  age.1 
Our  houses  and  our  cities,  our  fields  and  our  factories,  our 
newspapers,  our  railroads,  our  steamships  bear  witness  to 
the  triumphs  of  science  over  nature.  Compared  with  its 
predecessors,  the  XlXth  century  is  pre-eminently  a  century 
of  such  triumphs  of  science,  and  its  dominant  temper  has 
been  well  summed  up  in  the  description  of  it  as  the  "  century 
of  hope  ".  Nor  do  the  praises  of  science  rest  solely  on  its 
practical  benefits,  on  the  countless  conveniences  and  inven- 

1  Cf.  R.  B.  Perry,  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  ch.  i,  p.  5 ;  also 
F.  S.  Marvin,  The  Living  Past  and  The  Century  of  Hope. 


30  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

tions  by  which  it  has  added  to  the  comfort  and  ease  of 
human  existence.  The  buoyant  optimism  which  comes 
with  the  power  to  do,  is  matched  by  the  optimism  which 
comes  simply  from  the  joy  of  intellectual  conquests.  There 
are  many  who  rank  the  value  of  science  as  pure  theory,  as 
pursuit  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  far  above  its  value 
in  practical  application.1  On  both  grounds  science  is  claim- 
ing, and  obtaining,  an  ever  larger  place  in  modern  education, 
at  the  expense  of  literary  and  historical  subjects.  Its  ad- 
vocates, not  without  reason,  maintain  that  the  scientific 
temper  of  mind  and  the  scientific  attitude  towards  the 
world  have,  not  merely  a  utilitarian,  but  above  all  a  pro- 
found spiritual  value.  Science,  they  remind  us,  demands 
severe  submission  to  the  objectivity  of  fact.  It  trains  us 
in  the  virtues  of  being  dispassionate  and  impartial.  It  bids 
us  curb  our  desires  before  the  stern  face  of  truth.  It  dis- 
courages the  facile  human  trick  of  letting  the  wish  be  father 
to  the  thought.  Above  all,  it  discourages  us  from  judging 
facts  as  good  or  bad  by  reference  to  our  wishes:  it  teaches 
us  to  be  "  ethically  neutral  ".  As  pure  theory,  too,  it  is  in- 
different to  merely  practical  interests.  In  action  we  look 
to  the  future  and  turn  our  backs  upon  the  unalterable  past. 
But  to  the  disinterested  gaze  of  science  the  difference  be- 
tween past  and  future  is  irrelevant.  Spinoza  voiced  the 
very  spirit  of  science  when  he  said,  "  In  so  far  as  the  mind 
conceives  a  thing  according  to  the  dictates  of  reason,  it  will 
be  equally  affected  whether  the  idea  is  that  of  a  future,  past, 
or  present  thing."2  Thus  the  intellectual  discipline  of 
science  purges  us  from  the  fret  of  desire  and  the  fear  of 
an  unknown  future.  Whatever  there  is  menschlich,  allzu 
menschlich  about  us  drops  away  when  we  are  brought  face 

1  Cf.  the  well-known  toast  in  honour  of  mathematics :  "  May  it  never 
be  of  any  use  to  anybody." 

2  Ethics,  Bk.  iv,  Prop.  62. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  31 

to  face  with  the  wonder  and  the  necessity  of  things  as  they 
are.  Only  "  the  impersonal  cosmic  outlook  "  of  science, 
with  its  "  reverence  towards  fact ",  can  help  us  to  "  sweep 
away  all  other  desires  in  the  desire  to  know."  "A  life 
devoted  to  science ",  concludes  Bertrand  Russell,  "  is 
a  happy  life,  and  its  happiness  is  derived  from  the  very  best 
sources  that  are  open  to  dwellers  on  this  troubled  and  pas- 
sionate planet." 1 

The  attentive  reader  will  have  noticed  that  in  this  sum- 
mary of  the  praises  of  science,  the  values  claimed  for  it 
have  undergone  a  subtle  transformation.  At  first  the  prac- 
tical and  theoretical  values  of  science  were  presented  as 
complementary.  It  next  appeared  that  the  range  of  the 
desire  to  know  is  far  wider  than  the  range  of  things  which 
our  action  can  affect;  still  there  was  no  incompatibility. 
But,  in  the  end,  science  came  to  be  praised  for  its  aloofness 
from  action  and  from  the  desires  on  which  actions  are  based. 
Contemplation,  or  the  cosmic  outlook,  we  found  to  be  valued 
as  the  solvent  of  desire,  or  at  least  as  detaching  us  com- 
pletely from  practical,  and  incidentally  from  ethical,  in- 
terests. 

Now  this  is  a  situation  to  make  a  philosopher  pause. 
Clearly,  he  cannot  yield  to  the  call  to  make  his  philosophy 
"  scientific "  without  further  investigation.  Before  he 
can  grant  that  philosophy  is  a  science,  or  at  least  ought  to 
become  one  by  adopting  scientific  methods,  he  wants  to  be 
very  clear  about  the  consequences  of  the  step  he  is  asked 
to  take.  In  the  first  place,  he  notes  that  beneath  the 
divergent  valuations  of  science  which  have  come  to  light, 
there  are  concealed  incompatible  concepts  of  what  science 
and  scientific  method  are.  Is  science  homogeneous  through- 
out? Is  there  but  one  scientific  method?  It  would  appear 

1  Mysticism  and  Logic,  p.  45.  The  phrases  in  the  preceding  sentence 
are  quoted  from  the  same  book. 


32  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

that  there  is  a  profound  ambiguity  here;  that  the  sciences 
differ  widely  in  type  and  method,  and  that  the  advocates 
of  scientific  method  have  correspondingly  different  ideals 
in  mind.  For  one  group,  the  character  of  science  is  best 
embodied  in  mathematics,  especially  in  so  far  as  it  can  be 
reduced  to  pure  logic,  stripped  of  all  empirical  elements, 
made  purely  a  priori.  The  other  group  is  thinking  of  the 
laboratory  sciences  with  their  experimental  methods,  their 
manipulation  of  concrete  objects,  their  hypotheses  tested 
by  action,  their  constant  appeal  to  empirical  observation. 
These  two  groups  face  in  opposite  directions.  Though  they 
use  the  common  name  of  science,  their  differences  are  much 
more  marked  than  their  agreement.  They  are  not  only 
thinking  of  different  sorts  of  facts  and  different  methods  of 
investigation,  but  the  one  group  values  science  as  an  end  in 
itself,  for  what  is  contemplative  in  it;  whereas  the  other 
values  science  as  a  means  only,  for  what  is  instrumental  in 
it.  Which  of  these  two  is  the  philosopher  to  follow  when 
he  is  bidden  to  become  scientific? 

Again,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  difference  in  method  here 
brings  with  it  a  difference  in  matter.  What  is  at  stake 
for  the  philosopher  is  not  merely  the  manner  of  his  philos- 
ophising, but  the  very  problems  with  which  he  will  be 
allowed  to  concern  himself.  And  thus  it  becomes  abun- 
dantly clear  that  the  proposed  reforms  of  philosophy  are 
motived  by  fundamental  choices  or  preferences,  which  must 
be  examined  in  the  light  of  day,  if  the  value  of  the  reforms 
themselves  is  to  be  fairly  assessed.  We  are  dealing,  in 
the  last  analysis,  with  what  are  themselves  philosophical 
attitudes,  theories  about  the  right  employment  of  the  in- 
tellect, spiritual  valuations  expressed  in  terms  of  the  objects 
about  which,  and  the  conditions  under  which,  it  is  most 
worth  while  for  the  thinker  to  think. 

A  brief  examination  of  the  sorts  of  philosophising  to 


Ch.  II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  33 

which  these  two  divergent  ideals  of  scientific  method  respec- 
tively lead,  will  serve  to  verify  this  general  account. 

The  one  ideal  of  scientific  method  is  best  represented  by 
Bertrand  Russell,  who  means  by  it  the  "  logico-analytic  " 
method  of  modern  mathematical  logic.  It  draws  its  inspira- 
tion from  the  success  of  Frege  and  other  mathematicians 
in  showing  that  the  concepts  of  space  and  of  number,  on 
which  geometry  and  arithmetic  appeared  respectively  to  be 
built  up,  can  be  analysed  into  simpler  logical  notions;  that, 
in  fact,  mathematics,  thus  pushed  to  its  ultimate  foundations, 
is  indistinguishable  from  logic.  This  discovery  re-enforced 
the  traditional  admiration  for  mathematics  as  the  beau 
ideal  of  vigor,  precision,  clearness,  consistency,  conclusive- 
ness — in  short,  as  the  embodiment  of  all  the  intellectual 
virtues.  The  ideal  type  of  knowledge  has  once  again  been 
identified  with  a  deductive  system,  derived  according  to 
logical  rules  of  inference,  from  the  smallest  possible  num- 
ber of  simple,  indefinable  notions  and  ultimate,  mutually 
independent  postulates  or  assumptions.  Such  an  ideal  sug- 
gests two  tasks,  viz.,  (i)  the  study  of  the  most  general 
characteristics  of  deductive  systems,  such  as  the  forms  of 
propositions  involved  in  them,  the  relations  of  implication 
by  which  one  may  be  deduced  from  others,  and  (2)  the 
analysis  of  particular  complex  systems  into  the  simple  no- 
tions and  ultimate  postulates,  in  which  they  can  then  be 
shown  to  be  deductively  implied.  These  two  tasks  would 
correspond,  so  to  speak,  to  pure  and  applied  philosophy  res- 
pectively. 

We  ask,  next,  what  the  philosopher,  armed  with  the  logico- 
analytic  method  can  do  to  make  this  actual  world  of  ours, 
with  all  its  pressing  problems,  intelligible. 

In  seeking  an  answer  to  this  question  we  are  at  once 
confronted  by  a  singular  and  perplexing  oscillation  in  Rus- 


34  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

sell's  views,  (a)  At  times  he  writes  as  if  the  philosopher 
had  no  concern  with  applications  of  his  method  to  the  actual 
world  at  all;  as  if  he  ought  to  restrict  himself  to  pure  philos- 
ophy, i.e.,  to  pure  logic,  (b)  At  other  times,  he  makes 
himself  most  interesting  experiments  in  application,  rejoic- 
ing in  "  intellectual  constructions  "  designed  to  illustrate  the 
power  of  the  new  method  and  the  "  progress  "  which  it 
promises  to  effect,  (c)  Yet,  even  then,  Russell  always  em- 
phatically insists  that  the  range  of  fruitful  application  of 
the  new  method  is  strictly  limited,  and  that  many  of  the 
traditional  problems  of  philosophy — and  these  precisely  the 
humanly  most  interesting— are  not  soluble  by  his  method 
at  all  and  should,  therefore,  be  severely  left  alone  by  the 
philosopher. 

We  proceed  to  illustrate  these  three  strata,  or  aspects,  in 
Russell's  views,  bringing  to  light,  as  we  do  so,  minor  oscil- 
lations which  yet  bear  on  the  spiritual  valuations  underlying 
his  whole  theory. 

(a)  Philosophy,  we  note  first  of  all,  can  deal  by  the 
logico-analytic  method  only  with  what  is  abstract  and  gen- 
eral, not  with  what  is  concrete  and  empirical.  "  Philosophy 
is  the  science  of  the  possible  "/  we  are  told  in  emphatic 
italics — not  the  practically  possible,  that  is,  but  the  theoret- 
ically possible,  i.e.,  that  which  is  abstractly  conceivable. 
"  Philosophy  deals  only  with  the  general  properties  in  which 
all  possible  worlds  agree."  It  follows,  first,  that  "  a  philo- 
sophical proposition  must  be  such  as  can  neither  be  proved 
nor  disproved  by  empirical  evidence  ";  it  must  be  "  true  of 
any  possible  world,  independently  of  such  facts  as  can  only 
be  discovered  by  our  senses  ".  It  follows,  further,  that 
"  the  difference  between  a  good  world  and  a  bad  world  is 


1  The  following  quotations,  except  where  otherwise  stated,  are  from 
the  Herbert  Spencer  Lecture  on  "  Scientific  Method  in  Philosophy ", 
reprinted  in  Mysticism  and  Logic,  see  esp.  pp.  Ill,  112. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  35 

a  difference  in  the  particular  characteristics  of  the  particular 
things  that  exist  in  these  worlds;  it  is  not  a  sufficiently 
abstract  difference  to  come  within  the  province  of  philos- 
ophy "/  In  thus  providing  "  an  inventory  of  possibilities, 
a  repertory  of  abstractly  tenable  hypotheses  ",  philosophy 
emancipates  us  from  pre-occupation  with  the  actual  world, 
alike  in  its  appeal  to  our  desires  and  its  appeal  to  our  senses. 
It  gives  wings  to  the  imagination  by  carrying  us  into  the 
realms  of  what  may  be,  instead  of  focusing  our  vision  nar- 
rowly on  what  is.  It  offers  an  escape  from  the  intellectual 
bewilderment  besetting  those  who  allow  themselves  to  be 
entangled,  by  their  interest  in  the  actual,  in  the  insoluble 
problems  of  the  destiny  of  the  universe  and  of  mankind. 
It  introduces  us,  like  mathematics,  into  a  realm  of  eternal, 
unchangeable  verities,  the  patient  exploration  of  which  is 
as  satisfying  to  our  feeling  for  beauty  as  to  our  desire  for 
knowledge.  In  the  solution,  for  example,  of  the  contradic- 
tions which  had  been  supposed  to  beset  the  concepts  of 
continuity  and  infinity,  the  logico-analytic  method  has 
achieved  its  most  characteristic  triumphs.2 

(b)  Pure  philosophy,  then,  which  is  pure  logic,  deals 
wholly  with  abstract,  general  jorms.  Out  of  itself,  it  is 
quite  incapable  of  supplying  concrete,  particular  content. 
Form  and  content,  thus,  are  sharply  sundered,  and  in- 
dependent one  of  the  other.  "  Pure  logic  and  atomic  facts 
(e.g.,  facts  of  sense-perception)  are  the  two  poles,  the 
wholly  a  priori  and  the  wholly  empirical  ".3  In  the  analysis 
of  the  actual  world  we  are  confronted  with  a  complex  prod- 
uct of  these  two  factors,  i.e.,  with  a  body  of  beliefs  of  very 
varying  degrees  of  trustworthiness.  The  first  duty  of  the 
philosopher  is  to  take  up  towards  this  common  knowledge 


1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  26. 

2  Cf.  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  chs.  v-vii. 
8  Loc.  cit.,  p.  53. 


36  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

which  is  his  datum,  an  attitude  of  Cartesian  doubt,  so  as 
to  sort  out  the  elements  which  resist  criticism  and  may, 
therefore,  be  called  "  hard  "  data,  from  the  "  soft "  ele- 
ments which  dissolve,  or  at  least  become  doubtful,  under 
examination.  The  common  sense  world  having  thus  been 
reduced  to  its  hard  elements,  the  next  task  of  the  philo- 
sopher is  to  apply  his  method  in  the  intellectual  construction 
of  complex  entities  which  shall  serve  all  the  theoretical 
purposes  of  the  "  things "  of  common  sense,  or  of  the 
"  points  "  and  "  instants  "  of  physics,  whilst  yet  being  freed 
from  all  the  "  soft  "  elements  contained  in  them  as  ordinar- 
ily conceived.  With  the  details  of  Russell's  catalogue  of 
hard  data  we  need  not  concern  ourselves  here,  though  it  is 
only  what  we  should  expect  that  sense-data  and  the  laws 
of  logic  figure  among  the  hardest  of  the  hard,  whereas  sub- 
stances and  other  minds  are  "  soft  ".  So,  again,  it  belongs 
to  another  context1  to  appreciate  some  of  the  features  of 
Russell's  intellectual  construction  of  "  things ".  It  is 
enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  note  that  the  application 
of  logic  to  the  actual  world  has  these  two  stages:  first,  an 
analytic  search,  by  methodical  doubt,  for  all  that  is  "  logic- 
ally primitive"  or  "hard";  secondly,  a  synthetic  building 
up  out  of  hard  data,  and  by  logically  unexceptionable 
methods,  of  entities  which  fulfill  all  the  theoretical  functions 
of  the  objects  of  common  sense  and  current  physical  science, 
without  being  infected  by  their  logical  softness.  The  funda- 
mental question  for  Russell  under  this  latter  head  is  always: 
"  Can  we  make  any  valid  inferences  from  data  to  non-data 
in  the  empirical  world  "? 2  or,  "  Can  the  existence  of  any- 
thing other  than  our  own  hard  data  be  inferred  from  the 
existence  of  those  data?  " 3  In  the  mathematical  world  of 

1  See  below,  ch.  v. 

2  Cf.   Russell's    reply   to   John    Dewey,    in   Journal   of   Philosophy, 
Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods,  vol.  xvi,  no.  1,  p.  24. 

3  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  o.  73 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  37 

abstract  generalities  we  can  and  do  make  such  inferences 
validly.  In  the  concrete  world  of  sense  we  make  them 
too,  but  most  of  the  time  invalidly.  Hence  the  problem 
is  so  to  re-interpret  the  results  of  our  inferences  con- 
cerning the  actual  world  that  they  are  logically  hard 
throughout. 

(c)  There  are,  however  beliefs  concerning  the  actual 
world  which  philosophy  cannot,  and  must  not,  seek  to  re- 
construct. They  are  not  only  open  to  grave  doubt,  but  logic 
is  powerless  to  save  them.  They  are  beliefs  foreshadowing 
a  destiny  of  the  world  which  is  satisfactory  to  our  "  mun- 
dane desires  ".  They  are  beliefs  concerning  the  meaning, 
plan,  purpose  of  the  world;  beliefs  that  it  is  good  or  at 
least  working  towards  good;  beliefs  in  its  perfection  or 
perfectibility;  beliefs  in  God.  With  facts  the  logico-analytic 
method  can  deal:  but  in  the  realm  of  values  it  is  powerless. 
Thus  philosophy  is  bidden  to  eschew,  not  only  all  problems 
of  practice  and  conduct,  but  above  all  the  problems  of  the 
interpretation  of  the  world  in  the  light  of  moral  and  re- 
ligious experience.  "  It  is  my  belief  ",  writes  Russell,  "  that 
the  ethical  and  religious  motives,  in  spite  of  the  splendidly 
imaginative  systems  to  which  they  have  given  rise,  have 
been  on  the  whole  a  hindrance  to  the  progress  of  philosophy, 
and  ought  now  to  be  consciously  thrust  aside  by  those  who 
wish  to  discover  philosophical  truth.  .  .  .  It  is,  I  main- 
tain, from  science,  rather  than  from  ethics  and  religion,  that 
philosophy  should  draw  its  inspiration."1  To  let  moral 
and  religious  experience  enter  into  one's  philosophising  is 
to  open  the  doors  to  temperamental  differences,  to  let  human 
hopes  and  fears  dictate  what  the  universe  is  to  be.  It  is 
to  surrender  "  that  submission  to  fact  which  is  the  essence 
of  the  scientific  temper." 2  It  is  to  prostitute  the  effort  to 


1  Mysticism  and  Logic,  p.  98. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  109. 


50367 


38  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  II 

understand,  in  the  interest  of  the  desire  to  improve  human 
existence  or  at  least  to  inspire  it  with  hope.  With  human 
weaknesses  of  this  sort  philosophy  has  no  concern,  and 
thus  there  are  banished  from  it  most  of  the  problems  upon 
which  it  has  been  traditionally  engaged. 

The  second  form  of  the  demand  for  scientific  method  has 
for  its  watchword  "  experiment ",  and  finds  its  most  plaus- 
ible advocacy  through  the  "  instrumentalism  "  of  Professor 
John  Dewey.  It  differs  from  its  rival  in  that  it  faces  to- 
wards the  actual  world  of  our  experience,  not  away  from 
it,  and  in  that  it  makes  ethical  categories  fundamental  in 
its  philosophising,  instead  of  eliminating  them  altogether. 
Inspired,  at  bottom,  by  the  social  reformer's  zeal,  instru- 
mentalism seeks  to  supply  reform  with  a  technique  modelled 
on  the  laboratory  procedure  of  the  experimental  sciences. 
It  does  not,  like  its  rival,  shun  the  moral  problems  raised 
by  the  actual  world  as  undeserving  of  the  philosopher's 
study,  but  seeks  to  understand  the  world  in  order  to  better 
it.  It  does  not  want  to  banish  desire  as  irrelevant,  but  to 
supply  it  with  the  knowledge  which  it  needs  for  its  realisa- 
tion. 

"  Instrumentalism  "  is  the  name  for  the  theory  that  think- 
ing (or  theorising)  is  an  instrument;  that  its  place  and 
value  is  that  of  a  means,  a  tool;  that  the  insight  or  knowl- 
edge which  thinking  yields  ought  not  to  be  treated  as  ends 
in  themselves;  and  that  their  being  so  treated  is  a  perverse 
development,  full  of  undesirable  moral  and  social  conse- 
quences. Out  of  action  knowledge  springs  and  into  action 
it  must  return.  The  special  function  of  thinking  is  to  make 
action  intelligent  by  making  it  fore-seeing;  to  organise 
experience  so  as  to  provide  a  map,  as  it  were,  of  possible 
actions  and  their  consequences;  to  secure  thus  control, 
guidance,  efficiency;  adaptation  of  the  environment  to 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  39 

human  needs  and  of  human  aims  to  what  the  environment 
permits. 

Filling  in  this  rough  outline,  we  learn,  further,  that  expe- 
rience is  practical,  not  cognitive.  To  experience  is  to  experi- 
ment. Its  physiological  schema  is  that  of  stimulus  and 
response.  It  is  not  a  mere  undergoing  of  a  sequence  of 
sensations  with  spectator-like  passivity:  it  is  a  responding 
to  a  sensation  with  some  sort  of  behaviour  from  which  fresh 
sensations  result.  Thus  a  pattern  of  sensations  linked  by 
actions  (or  reactions)  is  formed,  and  each  element  in  the 
pattern  acquires  meaning  in  this  context,  becomes  a  cue 
for  possible  actions,  and  a  sign  for,  or  evidence  of,  further 
experiences  which  may  be  had  as  consequences  of  these 
actions.  On  the  basis  of  this  pattern  plans  can  be  formed, 
and  conduct  be  made  purposeful  and  rational.  To  under- 
stand anything,  to  know  what  it  is,  means  to  be  able  to 
anticipate  further  experiences  from  it  as  the  result  of  vari- 
ous actions  upon  or  towards  it.  Knowing  or  thinking  is 
thus  continuous  with,  or  incidental  to,  life  conceived  as 
commerce  with  an  environment,  as  activity  evoked  by, 
and  in  its  turn  altering,  that  environment. 

But,  further,  thinking  occurs  only  on  occasions  of  per- 
plexity and  doubt,  when  there  is  something  going  on  of 
which  the  issue  is  uncertain,  and  when  consequently  right 
action  is  a  problem.  Hence  it  is  a  process  of  inquiry,  search, 
discovery  and  its  method  is  experimental.  The  situation 
is  incomplete,  its  meaning  in  terms  of  future  developments 
indeterminate.  We  proceed  by  analysis  of  what  is  given 
and  by  conjectural  anticipation  of  what  is  to  come.  We 
form,  in  short,  a  working  hypothesis  and  then  work,  i.e., 
act,  upon  it.  The  result  tests  our  thinking.  This  is  the 
only  way  of  "  getting  knowledge  and  making  sure  it  is 
knowledge,  and  not  mere  opinion  ...  we  have  no  right 
to  call  anything  knowledge  except  where  our  activity  has 


40  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

actually  produced  certain  physical  changes  in  things,  which 
agree  with  and  confirm  the  conception  entertained." * 

Thus,  in  another  way,  thinking  is  intimately  bound  up 
with  activity,  and  bodily  activity  at  that.  It  is  not  some- 
thing that  goes  on  in  detachment  "  in  our  heads  ";  it  is  not 
the  exercise  of  a  disembodied  reasoning  faculty,  of  a  mind 
substantially  distinct  from  a  body.  As  experiment  it  in- 
volves doing,  physical  doing — looking,  handling,  dissecting, 
arranging,  with  or  without  special  apparatus.  Whether  in 
the  laboratory  or  in  life,  whether  in  the  exploration  of  in- 
fant or  scientist,  there  is  no  gaining  of  knowledge  without 
bodily  activity.  And  this  means  not  merely  using  one's 
sense-organs  on  objects,  but  using  the  objects  themselves, 
if  only  by  playing  with  them,  and  thus  gaming  a  fuller 
acquaintance  with  their  nature. 

Again,  our  world  is  in  process  of  change  and  our  activity 
is  one  of  the  channels  through  which  this  change  is  taking 
place — a  channel  important  in  proportion  to  the  guidance 
of  activity  by  knowledge.  Knowledge  thus  looks  always  to 
the  future.  "  All  that  the  wisest  man  can  do  is  to  observe 
what  is  going  on  more  widely  and  more  minutely,  and  then 
select  more  carefully  from  what  is  noted  just  those  factors 
which  point  to  something  to  happen."  2  Knowledge,  as  in- 
volving activity  and  involved  in  activity,  is  a  "  mode  of 
participation  "  in  the  cosmic  process.  It  is  not  the  mere 
onlooking  of  an  unconcerned  spectator. 

And  from  this,  lastly,  flow  ethical  and  social  consequences 
of  great  importance.  For,  if  we  are  helping  to  make  the 
world  what  it  is,  we  may  as  well  help  to  make  it  better. 
Let  our  working  hypotheses  be  ideals,  let  our  experiments 

1  All  quotatons  in  this  account  are  from  Dewey's  Democracy  and 
Education — a   book   in    which    there   is   much   to   admire   and   which 
sums  up  the  quintessence  of  his  philosophy.     For  the  above  passage, 
see  p.  393. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  171. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  41 

be  reforms.  Not  understanding  for  its  own  sake,  but  im- 
provement; not  theory  divorced  from  action,  but  action 
illumined  by  theory,  is  the  end  to  which  thinking  is  the 
instrument.  In  these  respects,  thus,  the  instrumentalist's 
theory  of  philosophical  method  is  the  polar  opposite  of  the 
mathematician's.  It  is  a  synthesis  of  the  method  of  experi- 
mental research  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  aspirations  towards 
social  reform  on  the  other.  It  has  learnt  from  physiology 
the  function  of  brain  and  nervous  system  as  the  mechanism 
for  linking  action  with,  and  adjusting  it  to,  stimulus;  from 
psychology,  the  importance  of  movement  and  behaviour  in 
the  organisation  of  experience;  from  biology,  the  increasing 
role  played  by  intelligence  in  making  the  organism  master 
of  the  conditions  of  its  life;  from  the  natural  sciences  in 
general,  the  testing  of  hypotheses  by  experiment;  from  in- 
dustrial organisation,  the  power  of  knowledge  in  transform- 
ing the  environment  of  human  life;  from  social  reform,  the 
duty  and  responsibility  of  using  this  power  in  the  service 
of  high  ideals. 

Summing  up,  one  might  not  unfairly  say  that  instrument- 
alism  is  an  elaboration  of  the  psychological  theories  of  the 
function  of  thought  to  which  William  James  gave  currency. 
"  Every  idea  is  a  half-way  house  to  action  ".  "  My  think- 
ing is  first  and  last  and  always  for  the  sake  of  my  doing  ". 
But  whilst  re-enforcing  these  positions  by  general  biological 
considerations,  instrumentalism  adds  a  characteristic  ethical 
application:  the  kind  of  doing  which  is  at  the  present  day 
most  urgent  is  social,  economic,  political  reform,  and  the 
kind  of  thinking  of  which  the  age  stands  most  in  need  is 
"  social  research  ",  including  social  experiment.  We  need 
to  know  more  and  to  think  more  to  the  end  that  we  may 
make,  if  not  a  better  heaven,  at  least  a  better  earth.  The 
same  organised  intelligence  which  we  are  applying  to  gain- 
ing the  mastery  over  the  forces  of  nature,  we  ought  to 


42  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  II 

apply  to  the  better  management  of  social  institutions  and 
to  the  cure  of  the  many  ills  which  spring  from  existing 
economic  and  political  systems.  It  is  this  reformer's  zeal, 
this  meliorism,  which  is  the  instrumentalist's  religion.  His 
philosophy,  put  into  practice,  means  intelligent  philan- 
thropy. 

Our  survey  of  these  two  main  proposals  for  a  reform 
of  philosophical  method  has  shown  that  they  differ,  not 
only  in  their  concept  of  what  makes  a  procedure  scientific, 
but  even  more  in  their  estimate  of  the  place  and  function 
of  thought  and  theory  in  human  life,  more  particularly  as 
these  bear  on  moral  values. 

The  enterprise  of  philosophy,  as  conceived  in  this  book, 
has  affinities  with  the  positive  points  in  both  programmes, 
but  does  not  share  the  extremes  of  their  denials. 

To  begin  with  Russell's  method,  it  is  clear  that,  so  far 
from  being  offered  as  a  better  instrument  for  achieving  the 
traditional  task  of  philosophy,  it  imposes  on  philosophy  a 
complete  re-orientation,  a  new  task  altogether.  It  is  no 
longer  a  question  of  how  to  do  a  thing  which  is  acknowl- 
edged to  be  worth  doing,  but  of  what  is  worth  doing  for 
a  philosopher  at  all.  The  abstraction  of  facts  from  values 
which  is  characteristic  of  science  is  used  to  forbid  the 
philosopher  even  the  attempt  at  a  synthesis.  The  inapplic- 
ability of  the  method  to  the  problems  of  value  is  not  con- 
fessed as  a  defect,  nor  even  as  a  limitation,  but  recom- 
mended as  a  merit  and  a  source  of  power.  The  implied 
claim  is  that  these  problems  are  not  legitimate  objects  of 
theoretical  interest.  If  it  be  replied  that  they  are  illegiti- 
mate only  for  a  philosopher  who  seeks  to  be  scientific — 
and  nobody  else,  on  this  view,  deserves  the  name  of  phil- 
osopher— we  must  counter  by  asking,  What  is  gained  by 
this  transference  of  philosophy  from  its  traditional  prob- 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  43 

lems  to  an  altogether  new  and  different  set?  Grant  that 
progress  will  be  made  in  these  new  problems,  grant  that 
competent  enquirers  will  agree  about  them  (for  whoever 
does  not  agree  will  ipso  facto  be  incompetent).  That  still 
leaves  the  old  problems  as  urgent,  as  persistent,  as  ever. 
And  men  will  continue  to  be  troubled  by  them  and  to  give 
their  best  thought  to  finding  a  solution  for  them.  Tradition- 
ally, this  has  been  the  philosopher's  province.  Now  the 
name  of  philosophy  is  to  be  attached  to  a  different  set  of 
enquiries.  If,  then,  a  manipulation  of  names  is  the  ultimate 
issue,  what  a  pitiable  storm  in  the  academic  teacup! 

But,  no — this  new  programme  of  scientific  method  is  an 
important  challenge,  not  because  of  the  problems  which  it 
assigns  or  denies  to  philosophy,  but  because  of  the  judg- 
ment of  value  which  it  expresses;  because,  in  short,  it  em- 
bodies itself  a  philosophy,  a  world-view,  precisely  in  the 
old-fashioned  sense  of  these  terms.    On  this  point,  no  one 
can  be  in  doubt  who  has  followed  how  this  present  pro- 
gramme has  developed  out  of  the  attitude  so  eloquently 
voiced  in  Russell's  "  The  Free  Man's  Worship  ".    In  that 
justly  famous  essay,1  Russell  affirms  an  irreconcilable  an- 
tithesis between  the  ideals  to  which  human  beings  acknowl- 
edge  loyalty,    and    the   physical    universe   which    is    the 
environing  scene  of  their  lives.    The  actual  world  is  there 
apostrophised  as  "  omnipotent  matter,  blind  to  good  and  evil, 
reckless  of  human  life  and  human  ideals."    The  only  road 
to  inward  freedom  is  there  represented  as  lying  through 
the  abandonment  of  hope,  through  stoic  endurance,  through 
heroic,  though  despairing,   faithfulness  to  human  values. 
Love  there  can  flourish  only  between  human  beings,  "  fel- 
low-sufferers in  the  same  darkness,   fellow-actors   in  the 
same  tragedy  ". 2     This  same  antithesis  of  scientific  facts 

1  See  Philosophical  Essays,  ch.  ii ;  or  Mysticism  and  Logic,  ch.  iii. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  69,  70 ;  or  p.  56. 


44  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.II 

and  human  values  re-appears  in  Russell's  latest  writings. 
But  it  has  there  become  a  strict  neutrality  with  respect  to 
values,  coupled  with  the  withdrawal  of  theoretical  interest 
into  a  realm  of  logical  abstractions.  It  is  now  a  passionate 
denial  that  reason  can  be  at  home,  or  help  to  make  men 
feel  at  home,  in  this  actual,  concrete  world  of  ours  which, 
for  better  or  for  worse,  grips  and  holds  us  by  all  sides  of 
our  natures.  It  declares  the  true  home  of  reason  to  be 
another  world,  a  world  of  abstract  logical  entities  and  rela- 
tions, with  a  fascination  and  beauty  of  its  own,  a  perfection 
which  the  intellect  can  enjoy,  untroubled  by  passion  and 
desire.  "  An  impartial  contemplation ",  we  are  assured, 
"  freed  from  all  preoccupation  with  Self  ...  is  very 
easily  combined  with  that  feeling  of  universal  love  which 
leads  the  mystic  to  say  that  the  whole  world  is  good."  1 
Still,  all  Russell's  eloquence  can  but  thinly  veil  the  pror 
found  pessimism  of  this  view,  the  confession  that  reason  is 
impotent  to  find  meaning  or  value  even  in  the  grim  and 
terrible  aspects  of  the  actual  world.  There  lies  the  real 
sting  of  Russell's  plea  for  scientific  method.  There  lies 
his  real  challenge  to  all  philosophy  which,  in  the  hands 
of  the  great  masters  of  speculation,  has  sought  to  elicit 
from  all  the  resources  of  our  experience  a  synthetic  vision 
of  the  whole,  which  should  justify  that  deep  confidence  in 
the  world  which  is  the  fruit  of  religion  at  its  best.  It  is 
because  of  this  renunciation  that  no  thorough-going  philo- 
sophy can,  in  the  end,  find  salvation  by  any  method  which 
is  scientific  in  the  spirit  of  Russell's  utterances. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  can  whole-heartedly  accept  all 
that  Russell  says  in  praise  of  philosophy  as  "  contempla- 
tion ",  as  theory  sought  for  its  own  sake.  It  does,  indeed, 
in  his  own  fine  phrase,  make  us  "  citizens  of  the  universe  ",2 

1  Mysticism  and  Logic,  p.  28. 

2  The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  249. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  45 

a  thing  it  could  never  do  if  it  were  merely  subordinate  to 
practical  interests.     It  is  just  here,  in  denying  to  theory 
any  but  an  instrumental  value,  that  the  weakness  of  instru- 
mentalism  lies.    Thinking  is  often  a  means,  but  it  may  legi- 
timately become  an  end  in  itself.    It  is  often  instrumental 
to  the  realisation  or  enjoyment  of  other  values,  but  it  may 
also  be  itself  enjoyed  and  practised  as  an  intrinsic  value, 
as  worth  while  for  its  own  sake.    We  need  knowledge  in 
order  to  live.    We  need  it  even  more  in  order  to  live  well. 
But  we  need  it  most  of  all  because  the  pursuit  and  the  en- 
joyment of  knowledge  is  itself  one,  though  only  one,  of  the 
values  devotion  to  which  makes  life  worth  living.     Again, 
it  is  a  narrow  conception  of  the  range  of  the  theoretical 
interest  which  identifies  it  exclusively  with  things  about 
to  happen  and  things  to  be  done.    Theory,  as  an  end  for  its 
own  sake,  is  not  exclusively  concerned  with  the  future. 
Nor  does  it  scorn  to  study  things  which  have  no  essential 
connection  with  time  at  all.    So,  again,  in  proportion  as  the 
pressure  of  practical  needs  is  released,  we  are  free  to  turn 
our  thoughts  from  the  problem  of  what  must  be  done,  or  of 
what  it  is  best  to  do,  to  the  contemplation  of  things  that 
give  no  occasion  for  action  at  all  except  such  as  helps  to 
a  fuller  knowledge  of  them.    Nor  does  such  thinking  deserve 
to  be  depreciated  as  barren  and  otiose.    It  is  well  to  have 
the  experimental  character  of  thinking  insisted  on,  but  not 
all  theories  can  be  tested  by  manipulation  of  the  physical 
world,  for  they  may  not  refer  to  that  world  at  all.    And 
even  the  reformer's  attitude,  however  important,   is  not 
final,  if  only  because  it  is  not  equivalent  to,  or  exhaustive 
of,  religion.    A  moral  agent,  without  ceasing  to  be  deeply 
concerned,  can  yet  reflect  on  his  moral  activity  and  realise 
that  it  is  not  everything  and  affords  no  ultimate  standing- 
ground.    Grant  that  the  world  is  in  process  of  change,  yet 
that  does  not  preclude  its  bringing  home  to  us  in  ever  fresh 


46  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  II 

ways  the  same  fundamental  lessons.  It  is  insight  into  these 
lessons  which  philosophy  seeks  and,  at  its  best,  attains.  And 
the  supreme  lesson,  surely,  is  this  that  it  does  not  lie  within 
the  power  of  man  to  make  the  world  once  and  for  all  "  safe  " 
for  his  ideals.  Such  safe-making  is  for  the  moralist  and 
reformer  the  end-all  and  be-all  of  human  existence.  Yet 
it  may  well  be  asked  whether  any  world  in  which  it  is  funda- 
mentally worth  while  to  live  can  be  really  conceived  as 
"  safe  " — as  a  world  in  which  man  no  longer  needs  to 
"  save  "  himself  by  standing,  with  his  life  and  with  all  that 
he  has,  for  what  he  values  most,  because  the  forces  which 
would  endanger  and  overthrow  these  values  are,  once  for  all, 
destroyed?  To  believe  such  safe-making  possible  amounts 
to  an  idolatry  of  man  and  of  men's  self-sufficiency  and 
prowess  which  is  the  mere  moralist's  peculiar  fallacy,  and 
from  which  religion  with  its  "  Not  my  will,  but  Thine,  be 
done,"  offers  the  only  escape.  There  can  be  no  sound  or 
complete  philosophy,  whatever  its  method,  which  ignores 
such  lessons  as  these. 

It  must  be  very  clear  by  now  that  the  theories  of  method 
which  we  have  been  contrasting  are,  one  and  all,  "  visions  " 
in  the  sense  of  James's  saying  quoted  above.1  They  express 
spiritual  attitudes — total  reactions  to  each  thinker's  total 
experience;  they  are  very  literally  ways  in  which  each 
feels  the  "  whole  push  of  the  universe."  They  are  experi- 
ments in  thinking,  though  not  experiments  in  the  laboratory 
sense  of  verifying  by  the  actual  event  some  prediction  which 
is  being  put  to  the  test.  A  philosophical  theory  is  rarely 
such  that  it  can  be  proved  or  disproved  by  some  action 
devised  ad  hoc.  It  must  indeed  "  work  "  and  thus  give 
evidence  of  its  truth,  but  there  is  about  the  verification  of 
it  no  watching  for  an  anticipated  consequence  to  come  off, 

1  See  p.  24. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  47 

nor  does  the  criticism  of  it  proceed,  as  a  rule,  by  adducing 
"  negative  instances  ".  Of  experiment  in  the  instrumentalist 
sense  there  is  little  in  philosophy:  of  experiment  in  the 
adjusting  of  conflicting  beliefs  there  is  a  great  deal.  There 
is  a  weighing  of  considerations,  a  trying  out  of  alternatives, 
a  mobilising  of  all  the  resources  of  one's  experience  and 
reflection,  a  feeling  one's  way  from  a  distracted  and  un- 
stable to  a  coherent  and  stable  outlook.  Experiment  in 
this  sense  is  one  with  "  dialectic  ",  with  learning  by  expe- 
rience, with  the  recasting  and  transforming  of  beliefs  which 
mark  the  growing  insight,  as  the  thinker  advances  from 
haphazard  and  partial  to  orderly  and  inclusive  reflection. 
Does  it  follow  from  this  experimental  character  of  phil- 
osophical thinking  that  it  can  never  get  beyond  tentative 
guesses?  It  is  the  fashion  nowadays,  even  among  certain 
philosophers,  to  evade  the  accusation  of  dogmatism  by 
claiming  for  philosophical  theory  nothing  more  than  the 
character  of,  at  best,  a  probable  hypothesis.  Conviction, 
certainty — these  are  said  to  be  unattainable.  The  facts  of 
everyday  life,  the  theories  of  science  are  allowed  to  be,  by 
comparison,  far  superior  in  certainty.  Proof,  demonstration 
in  philosophy  are  held  to  be  impossible.  The  philosopher's 
path  is  not  from  doubt,  or  through  doubt,  to  reasoned  con- 
viction, but  from  certainty  to  doubt.  He  leaves  the  firm 
land  of  common  experience  to  navigate  uncharted  seas  of 
speculation  without  assurance  of  reaching  a  harbour. 
Dogmatism,  no  doubt,  is  unjustifiable,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  philosopher  may  not  reach  convictions  which  are 
stable  enough  at  least  for  him.  To  demonstrate  them  to 
others,  to  compel  their  assent,  may  be  beyond  his  powers, 
for  demonstration  requires,  not  merely  technical  correct- 
ness of  the  argument,  but  acceptance  by  the  other  of  its 
premises.  But  the  difficulties  of  securing  this,  where  the 
premises  depend  on  the  range  and  quality  of  each  thinker's 


48  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  II 

concrete  experience,  are  obvious.  Yet  a  reasoned  and  rea- 
sonable theory  (or,  if  the  word  be  preferred,  "  faith  ")  is 
not  unattainable  and  has  rewarded  the  venture  of  philo- 
sophising again  and  again.  Are  there  not,  after  all,  certain- 
ties in  life,  not  ordinarily  reflected  on,  which  in  philoso- 
phising are  raised  to  the  level  of  explicit  insight?  "  The 
things  which  are  most  important  in  man's  experience  are  also 
the  things  which  are  most  certain  to  his  thought  ".1 

Does  it  follow,  lastly,  that  there  is  no  progress  in  phil- 
osophising? And  if  there  is  none,  is  the  fact  a  fatal  con- 
demnation? The  denial  of  progress  can  hardly  apply  to 
the  individual  thinker.  He  does  progress  in  developing 
his  world-view.  Again,  it  cannot  mean  that  no  new  theories 
are  formulated,  no  original  discoveries  made,  no  old  the- 
ories re-examined,  improved,  supported  by  fresh  argument. 
For  all  these  things  are  happening  in  philosophy.  It  must, 
then,  mean  that  all  new  theories  do  but  add  to  the  babel 
and  confusion,  that  there  is  no  cumulative  cooperative 
advance  from  generation  to  generation,  no  funded  stock  of 
philosophical  truths  which  can  be  taught  as  its  established 
rudiments  to  beginners,  and  which  are  taken  for  granted  by 
all  experts  as  the  basis  of  further  enquiry.  The  same 
problems  are  ever  examined  afresh.  No  doubt,  typical  solu- 
tions are  supported  again  and  again  by  fresh  adherents, 
yet  for  philosophers  as  a  body  the  old  problems  remain 
persistently  open. 

"  Persistent  problems  " — why  do  they  persist?  If  phil- 
osophy does  not  get  on,  why  not  apply  to  it  the  whole- 
some rule:  get  on  or  get  out? 

The  answer  to  this  challenge  is  to  be  found  in  our  whole 
interpretation  of  philosophy.  In  whatever  respects  we  may 
claim  to  have  progressed  since  the  days  of  Parmenides  and 

1B.  Bosanquet,  The  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value,  Preface, 
p.  v. 


Ch.II]  IDOL  OF  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  49 

Plato,  yet  the  need  for  discerning  the  permanent  lineaments 
of  the  universe  in  the  ever-changing  tissue  of  social  and 
scientific,  moral  and  religious  experience  remains  with  us,, 
and  is  ever  renewed  by  the  very  changes  which  we  acclaim 
as  progress.  Problems  persist  because,  being  universal, 
they  recur  from  age  to  age  in  human  experience,  however 
its  details  may  be  modified.  And  as  often  as  they  recur, 
the  individual  thinker  has  to  master  them  once  more  him- 
self, for  the  solutions  of  his  predecessors  are  but  lifeless 
formulae,  unless  he  can  re-think  them  on  the  basis  of  his 
own  experience.  Without  such  re-thinking,  there  is  no 
"  living  past ".  Only  through  it  does  the  thought  of  the 
great  philosophers  become  dateless  and  deathless,  living 
across  the  ages  and  helping  the  thinker  of  the  present  day 
as  the  record  of  a  pilgrimage  may  help  later  travellers  pass- 
ing the  same  way.  But  only  he  who  undertakes  the  journey 
himself  learns  to  perceive  that  every  philosopher  is  engaged 
in  the  same  pilgrim's  progress,  whether  or  no  he  call  his 
goal  the  city  of  God. 


CHAPTER  III 

PHILOSOPHY  OF   NATURE  AT   THE   CROSS-ROADS 

PHILOSOPHY  of  Nature  grows,  like  all  philosophy,  out  of 
the  effort  to  make  explicit,  in  coherent  theory,  just  what 
is  the  character  of  that  world  which  reveals  itself  in  human 
experience. 

"  Nature  ",  "  the  physical  world  ",  "  the  world  of  sense  ", 
is  to  us  both  the  environment — the  scene,  or  stage,  upon 
which  we  act  out  our  lives — and  the  greater  whole,  or  sys- 
tem, of  which  we  recognise  ourselves  as  parts.  If  in  the 
former  aspect  we  think  of  it  chiefly  as  something  to  be 
mastered  and  used  for  our  ends,  in  the  latter  aspect  it  is 
brought  home  to  us  that,  after  all,  it  depends  on  the  con- 
stitution of  Nature  what  is  the  ultimate  fate  of  all  our 
efforts,  what  is  the  destiny  of  all  those  values  the  realisation 
of  which  alone  makes  life  worth  living.  Bacon's  wisdom 
still  holds:  naturae  non  imperatur  nisi  parendo. 

However,  lording  it  over  Nature  at  the  price  of  submis- 
sion to  her  laws  has  never  been  man's  only,  even  though 
it  has  often  been  his  most  urgent,  concern.  Not  on  any 
pattern  so  simple  are  the  relations  of  man  to  the  world 
around  him  constructed.  From  control  to  worship,  from 
intellectual  curiosity  to  aesthetic  enjoyment  and  religious 
awe,  his  ways  of  being  interested  in  Nature  are  many  and 
various.  His  attitudes  towards  Nature  run  through  the 
whole  gamut  of  emotions,  and  his  theories  reflect  the  oscil- 
lations of  his  moods.  It  is  precisely  out  of  these  complex 
and  often  contradictory  data  that  philosophy  must  seek  to 
elicit  an  interpretation  of  Nature  which  shall  be  true  as 
theory  and  also  offer  a  firm  foundation  for  conduct. 

50 


Ch.III]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  51 

But  in  attempting  this  task,  philosophy  finds  itself  at 
a  parting  of  the  ways.  One  of  these  ways — a  way  advocated 
by  a  growing  and  influential  school  of  thinkers — is  the  way 
of  distinguishing  sharply  between  "  fact  "  and  "  truth  ",  on 
the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  all  human  wishes,  pre- 
ferences, emotions.  "  Ascertain  first  the  constitution  of  the 
universe  and  then  adjust  your  feelings  to  your  facts  ",  say 
these  counsellors.  They  bid  us  bear  in  mind  how  subtle, 
because  generally  unconscious,  is  the  influence  of  our 
wishes  upon  our  theories,  how  ready  we  are  to  believe  what 
is  pleasing  and  to  disbelieve  what  is  displeasing,  how  apt 
our  reasonings  are  to  favour  rather  than  thwart  our  desires. 
Who  has  not,  on  occasion,  been  tempted  to  argue  that, 
unless  certain  beliefs  be  true,  the  world  would  be  utterly 
bad  and  life  in  it  not  worth  living?  Who  has  not  cried  out 
that  certain  beliefs  cannot  be  true,  because  it  would  be 
intolerable  if  they  were?  Who  has  not,  in  effect,  tried  to 
infer  the  falsity  of  a  theory  from  the  undesirability  of  its 
consequences?  Put  in  this  way,  intellectual  integrity  and 
moral  courage  alike  seem  to  demand,  that  he  who  would 
enter  the  temple  of  truth  must  first  lay  aside  all  demands 
and  desires,  and  be  ready,  in  utter  humility  and  submission, 
to  face  andjaccept  facts  as  they  are,  whatever  be  the  hurt 
to  his  feelings. 

Hope,  comfort,  security,  trust — these  are  the  things  for 
which  men  most  long  in  their  dealings  with  Nature.  A 
world  in  which  they  can  hope,  a  world  which  comforts 
rather  than  bruises,  a  world  in  which  they  can  feel  at 
home — that  is  the  kind  of  world  which  men  want  above  all 
to  believe  in,  which  at  all  costs  they  try  to  believe  in,  in- 
venting philosophies  and  religions  which  hold  out  this 
promise,  which  bring  this  assurance. 

But  this,  so  say  the  advocates  of  the  one  way,  is  to  be 
the  victim  of  illusion.  Beliefs  which  are  untrue  are  bound, 


52  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  Ill 

sooner  or  later,  to  play  the  believer  false.  His  comfort,  his 
security,  his  happiness  are  built  on  unstable  foundations, 
and  at  the  remorseless  touch  of  fact  will  crumble  into  dust. 
The  only  way  to  salvation  lies  through  the  wholly  disinter- 
ested search  for  truth.  Let  us  ask  first  what  we  have  a 
right  reasonably  to  believe,  and  then  let  us  adjust  our 
feelings  and  wishes,  for  better  or  for  worse,  to  the  inexor- 
able facts.  This  is  the  one  way  of  escape  from  illusion  and 
fear,  not  perhaps  to  happiness  and  hope,  but  at  least  to 
dignity  and  nobility  of  living. 

There  is  something  in  this  appeal  which  must  evoke  a 
thrill  of  response  from  everyone  who  cares  at  all  for 
truth  and  who  knows,  as  Spinoza  knew,  that  the  service 
of  truth  demands  a  severe  discipline  and  education  of  the 
emotions.  But  is  the  situation  quite  so  simple  as  it  is 
here  pictured?  However  much  we  may  all  need  the  warn- 
ing against  the  cheery,  but  cheap,  optimism  which  exclaims 
"  God  is  in  his  heaven,  all's  right  with  the  world  ",  is  there 
not  also  the  opposite  and  more  subtle  danger  that  we  shall 
distrust,  and  reject  as  false,  beliefs  on  no  other  ground 
that  they  are  pleasant  and  comforting?  There  is  a  tendency 
abroad  among  some  present-day  thinkers  to  set  down  all 
theories  which  do  not  paint  the  world  as  an  ugly,  dark,  evil 
thing,  as  "  compensations "  for,  or  "  escapes "  from,  an 
intolerable  actuality.  Shrinking  from  the  cruelty  and 
horror  of  the  world  as  it  is,  we  build,  according  to  this 
view,  palaces  of  illusion  where  we  can  be  at  peace.  We 
remould  the  world  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire — in  imagina- 
tion, deliberately  turning  our  backs  upon  the  actual  which 
we  cannot  bear.  We  seek  and  find  in  make-believe  theory 
a  vicarious  satisfaction  for  the  wishes  which  life,  as  it 
really  is,  brutally  thwarts  and  represses.  Philosophies 
which  find  value  in  the  world  are  likened  to  art,  as  ways 
of  escape  into  the  realm  of  the  ideal  from  the  imperfections 


Ch.  Ill]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  53 

of  the  actual.  Religions  which  give  comfort  are  likened 
to  the  dreams  of  Freudian  psychology,  as  make-believe  ful- 
filments of  baulked  desires.  But  if  we  are  thus  to  "  psy- 
chologise  ",  or  "  psycho-analyse  ",  those  whose  beliefs  are 
comforting,  why  not  peer  similarly  into  the  hidden  springs 
of  the  thought  of  those  who,  in  the  words  of  Russell's  in- 
genuous confession,  "  like  some  of  their  beliefs  to  have  the 
quality  of  a  hair-shirt?  "  x  If  philosophy  has,  as  Russell  in 
the  same  passage  suggests,  its  ascetics  as  well  as  its  volupt- 
uaries, is  it  a  priori  certain  that  the  truth  is  always  and 
wholly  on  the  side  of  the  ascetic?  If  there  is  a  bias  for 
what  is  comforting  and  pleasant,  is  there  not  in  some  minds 
also  a  bias  for  what  is  arduous  and  painful?  It  is  possible, 
as  every  psychologist  knows,  to  enjoy  the  infliction  of  pain, 
not  only  on  others,  but  even  on  oneself.  It  is  possible  to 
enjoy  a  theory  which  tortures  by  demanding  renunciations, 
and  even,  unconsciously,  to  let  the  fact  that  it  tortures 
weigh  among  the  reasons  for  accepting  it  as  true.  There 
never  yet  was  a  pessimist  who  did  not  enjoy  at  least  the 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  his  pessimism,  not  unmixed,  oc- 
casionally, with  the  pleasure  of  contemplating  the  pitiful 
illusions  of  his  opponents.  Bradley  was  not  far  wrong 
when  he  summed  up  the  pessimist's  attitude  in  the  aphor- 
ism: "  Where  all  is  bad,  it  must  be  good  to  know  the 
worst"— a  remark  unintentionally  verified  by  Russell's: 
"  There  is  a  stark  joy  in  the  unflinching  perception  of  our 
true  place  in  the  world."  It  is,  of  course,  only  a  bad  world 
which  requires  unflinching  perception. 

If  this  were  merely  a  dispute  about  tastes  or  tempera- 
ments, there  would  be  little  point  in  paying  so  much  atten- 

1 "  Some  ascetic  instinct  makes  me  desire  that  a  portion,  at  least, 
of  my  beliefs  should  be  of  the  nature  of  a  hair-shirt;  and,  as  is  natural 
to  an  ascetic,  I  incline  to  condemn  the  will-to-believers  as  voluptu- 
aries". Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods, 
vol.  xvi,  no.  1,  Jan.  1919. 


54  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  Ill 

tion  to  it.  What  is  important  is  to  challenge,  here  and  now, 
the  suggestion  that  philosophies,  or  religions,  which  meet 
spiritual  needs,  are,  for  this  reason,  false,  or,  at  least,  likely 
to  be  false.  Granted  that  a  wish  is  often  the  father  of  a 
thought,  does  it  follow  either  that  a  given  thought  which 
is  such  that  we  should  prefer  it  to  be  true,  has  therefore 
a  wish  for  its  parent,  or  is  therefore  untrue?  The  situation 
reminds  one  of  the  relation  of  duty  to  the  inclinations  in 
Kant's  moral  theory.  When  duty  and  inclination  coincide, 
we  are  but  too  likely  to  deceive  ourselves  concerning  the 
moral  quality  of  our  conduct.  Hence  it  is  only  when  we 
do  a  thing  we  utterly  dislike  from  a  stern  sense  of  duty 
alone,  that  we  can  be  sure  our  action  is  moral.  So  here; 
it  is  only  when  we  believe  the  world  to  be  as  we  would 
much  rather  not  have  it,  that  we  can  be  sure  of  the  truth 
of  the  belief — or  at  least  sure  that  no  wishes  have  imposed 
illusions  upon  us.  The  only  wish  against  the  influence  of 
which,  even  then,  we  shall  have  no  guarantee  is  the  wish  to 
believe  what  runs  counter  to  other  wishes,  of  one's  own 
or  of  other  people. 

The  only  aim  of  our  argument,  so  far,  has  been  to  keep 
open  the  door  for  an  alternative  to  this  much-advertised 
way  of  contrasting  facts  and  wishes.  Behind  that  contrast, 
there  lies  the  deeper  contrast  of  fact  and  value,  and  the 
problem  of  their  relation,  indeed  of  their  identity.  It  is 
from  this  side  that  we  can  best  approach  the  second  way 
which  lies  before  philosophy. 

In  the  first  essay,  we  had  laid  it  down  that  the  spirit 
of  philosophising  is  the  spirit  of  wholeness,  and  that  whole- 
ness implies  a  unity  of  outlook  upon  the  universe  and 
a  stability  of  attitude,  such  as  are  unattainable  if  no  syn- 
thesis is  possible  of  the  realm  of  fact  and  the  realm  of 
value. 


Ch.III]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  55 

The  category  of  value  is  as  old  as  morality  and  religion 
themselves,  and  in  this  sense  has  been  a  topic  of  philosophi- 
cal speculation  as  long  as  these  modes  of  experience  have 
attracted  the  philosopher's  interest.  But,  in  another  sense, 
the  realm  of  values  is  new  to  exploration,  and  it  is  only  in 
our  own  day  that  this  exploration  has  been  undertaken 
with  all  the  resources  of  modern  psychological  and 
logical  analysis.  The  "  Theory  of  Value ",  eo  nomine, 
is  the  latest  addition  to  philosophical  disciplines,  and 
its  development  has  barely  begun  to  emerge  from  the 
experimental  stage.  Value-judgments,  value-feelings,  acts 
of  valuation,  still  stand  as  so  many  diverse  points  of 
departure  for  analysis,  nor  can  any  single  theory  claim 
to  have  gained  undisputed  acceptance.  All  the  conflict- 
ing tendencies  which  characterise  modern  philosophy  at 
large,  re-appear  in  the  special  field  of  the  theory  of 
value.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  realism  and  idealism,  natural- 
ism and  mysticism,  pragmatism  and  intuitionism  confront 
one  another,  though  sometimes  in  strangely  assorted 
alliances. 

Still,  through  the  dust  it  is  possible  to  discern  that 
the  conflict  is  raging,  as  it  was  bound  to  rage,  about  a 
fundamental  point,  the  recognition  of  which  is  as  old  as  the 
Platonic-Aristotelian  theory  of  pleasure.  Is  value  relative 
to  desire  and  want,  and  thus  "  subjective "?  Or  is  it 
"  objective  " — a  quality  of  perfection  in  the  universe  to  be 
appreciated,  though  this  appreciation  may  need  to  be 
learned,  and  though  this  learning  may  need  an  arduous 
effort? 

If  value  is  relative  to  desire,  then  nothing  has  value  (or 
is  a  value)  except  what  is  desired,  and  so  far,  and  for  so 
long,  as  it  remains  an  object  of  desire  to  somebody.  Desire 
will  confer  the  quality  of  value  on  its  objects.  The  exist- 
ence of  a  desire  will  be  the  condition  precedent  to  anything 


56  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  Ill 

having  value.  To  have  value  will  mean  to  be  valued,  and 
this  will  mean  to  be  desired. 

No  doubt,  this  position  may  be  superficially  approximated 
to  its  rival,  by  saying  that  every  desire  implies  an  apprecia- 
tion and  thus  a  judgment  of  approval.  Whatever  you 
desire,  so  the  plea  may  run,  you  approve;  to  desire  is  to 
think  (judge)  that  what  you  desire  is  good.  Thus  all 
desire  is  sub  ratione  boni. 

But  this  is  an  evasion,  as  may  be  seen  by  putting  the 
test-question:  on  the  theory  of  the  subjectivity  of  value,  is 
a  thing  desired  because  it  is  judged  to  be  good,  or  is  the 
judgment  of  value  a  mere  consequence,  and  expression  of, 
the  fact  that  it  is  desired?  The  latter  position  alone  would 
appear  to  be  consonant  with  the  subjectivity-theory.  But 
lest  we  lose  ourselves  here  in  idle  hair-splitting,  let  us  rather 
put  the  point  thus:  Are  there  not  approvals,  Bejahungen, 
which  are  not  preceded,  or  conditioned  by,  desire?  Are 
there  not  acceptances,  appreciations,  satisfactions,  findings 
good  of  which  desire,  at  best,  is  only  an  index  under  the 
special  condition  when  the  object  is  absent,  lacking,  un- 
realised? Does  value  cease  with  fulfilment  and  thereby 
cessation  of  desire?  Is  there  no  enjoyment  or  recognition 
of  value  in  things,  when  reflected  upon  and  contemplated? 
Is  there  no  value  discernible  in  things  which,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  cannot  be  effectively  or  reasonably  desired,  as 
not  being  within  our  power?  Do  not  the  resources  of  expe- 
rience and  reflection  enable  us,  on  occasion,  to  perceive  a 
value  in  things  which,  in  their  immediately  given  character, 
provoke  aversion  and  condemnation?  A  theory  which  has 
not  explored  these  clues  and  possibilities,  or  which  refuses 
to  do  so,  can  hardly  set  up  an  unchallenged  claim  to  accept- 
ance. 

Another  way  of  pressing  the  same  point  is  to  enquire 
whether,  except  on  a  theory  of  objective  value,  there  can 


Ch.III]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  57 

be  any  standard  for  the  criticism,  and  thereby  for  the  cor- 
rection and  education,  of  desires.  In  the  field  of  desires 
the  process  of  learning  by  experience  is,  perhaps,  even  more 
obvious  than  in  the  field  of  our  theoretical  beliefs.  Mis- 
takes here  are  peculiarly  glaring  and  painful.  Desired  ob- 
jects so  frequently  play  us  false.  Attained,  they  still  leave 
us  dissatisfied.  Disappointment  proves  them  "  false "; 
shows  that  they  were  not  what  we  "  really  ",  i.e.,  truly, 
wanted.  Not  that  the  theory  of  the  subjectivity  of  value 
is  wholly  at  a  loss  in  the  face  of  this  situation.  It  may  set 
up  the  ideal  of  a  harmony  of  desires,  an  organisation  of  them 
without  friction  or  mutual  interference,  a  goal  of  maximum 
satisfaction  through  desires  regulated  and  adjusted  each 
to  the  others  in  due  proportion.  In  that  it  thus  offers  a 
standard  of  apparent  "  wholeness  ",  the  theory  is  tempting 
and  plausible.  And  indeed  it. is  right  so  far  as  it  goes.  But 
it  does  not  go  all  the  way.  It  leaves  out  too  much  to 
measure  up,  even  in  mere  theory,  to  what  wholeness  im- 
plies and  demands.  It  leaves  out  the  enjoyments  and  ap- 
preciations which  come  unsought  and  undesired.  It  leaves 
out  the  problem  of  the  appreciation  of,  or  satisfaction  with, 
the  world  in  all  those  aspects  of  it  for  which,  because  they 
are  not  modifiable  by  human  action,  desire  cannot  furnish 
the  criterion  or  measure  of  value.  Those  who  hold  that 
"  good  "  is  indefinable,  or,  in  general,  that  value  is  a  quality 
in  things  the  presence  of  which  can  only  be  perceived 
or  intuited,  like  the  presence  of  a  sense-quality,  such  as 
"  yellow  ",x  might  support  our  view  here  against  the  theory 
which  makes  value  dependent  on  desire.  But  in  so  far  as 
they  declare  such  intuition  to  be  infallible  (for  who  can 
perceive  what  is  not  there?),  and  therefore  beyond  the  reach 
of,  or  need  for,  correction  and  education;  in  so  far  as  they 
deny,  by  implication  at  least,  that  the  appreciation  and 

1 G.  E.  Moore,  Principia  Ethica,  ch.  i,  §  7,  p.  7. 


58  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  Ill 

recognition  of  objective  value  can  be  deepened  by  the  lessons 
of  experience,  or  that  there  is  a  "  dialectic  "  through  which 
we  come  to  apprehend  more  clearly  not  only  what  we  ought 
to  desire,  but  the  actual  value  of  actual  fact,  their  theory 
still  differs  from  the  one  here  suggested. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  argue  the  difficult  question  of 
the  comparative  merits  of  these  rival  theories  of  value.  It 
is  enough  to  have  shown  what  alternatives  are  open  to 
choice.  Which  of  them  a  given  thinker  will  prefer  is 
sure  to  depend  on  his  total  philosophical  attitude,  such  as 
it  springs  by  reflection  from  the  synthesis  of  all  his  expe- 
rience. In  choices  of  this  sort  it  is  never  possible  to  demon- 
strate that  one  alternative  is  unquestionably  right  and  the 
other  wrong.  If  that  were  possible  with  any  ease,  there 
would  not  be  the  prevailing  divergence  of  view.  But  this  is 
not  to  deny  the  reasonableness  of  such  choices.  For  what 
is  a  thinker  to  reason  with  except  the  experiences  through 
which  the  world  reveals  itself  to  him?  All  he  can  do  is  to 
weigh  how  far  any  given  view  sums  up,  and  is  consistent 
with,  any  experience  by  which  he  can  test  it.  On  such 
weighings  of  total  impressions  the  fundamental  differences  in 
philosophy  commonly  turn.  When  the  question  is  whether 
value  exists,  or  comes  into  being,  only  in  dependence 
on  desire,  or  whether  it  may  be  discerned  throughout  the 
world  in  proportion  as  the  effort  to  view  the  world  as  a 
whole  succeeds,  the  decision  will  always  depend  on  what 
types  of  experiences  furnish  the  dominant  clues,  what  point 
of  view  each  thinker  is  accustomed  to  treat  as  decisive.  *  On 
the  one  theory,  value  is  essentially  a  man-dependent 
phenomenon.  On  the  other,  it  is  a  cosmic,  or,  if  we  prefer 
to  say  so,  a  metaphysical  character.  On  the  one  view,  cer- 
tain kinds  of  things  in  the  universe  have  value,  as  being 
objects  of  desire.  On  the  other,  it  is  the  universe  itself,  and 
as  a  whole,  which  to  the  best  insight  has  value.  *  The  "  best 


Ch.  Ill]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  59 

insight "  of  the  latter  theory  will  seem  romantic  fiction,  or 
even  mere  foolish  or  mischievous  make-believe,  to  the  ad- 
herents of  the  former.  By  contrast,  the  theory  of  the  former 
will  seem  abstract  and  ill-balanced  to  the  adherents  of  the 
latter,  as  ignoring  or  depreciating  through  the  device  of 
opposing  feeling  to  fact,  or  desire  to  truth,  the  metaphysical 
import  of  moral  and  religious  experience. 

Here,  after  all,  we  have  the  kernel  of  the  issue.  Philoso- 
phical choices  turn,  we  said  just  now,  on  total  impressions, 
on  the  point  of  view  which,  in  estimating  the  dominant 
character  of  the  universe,  we  treat  as  decisive.  There  are 
for  modern  men  two  such  points  of  view,  determined  for 
us  by  the  whole  historical  development  of  our  civilisation, 
alike  on  its  side  of  social  organisation  and  activity,  and,  even 
more,  on  its  side  of  speculative  theory.  Throughout  the 
history  of  modern  philosophy,  no  less  than  in  the  wider 
movements  of  educated  thought  which  philosophical  theories 
both  focus  and  stimulate,  we  can  trace  the  varying  rela- 
tions of  these  two  points  of  view,  now  in  sharp  opposi- 
tion, now  in  ingenious  compromise,  now  joined  in  close 
synthesis.  Knowing  them  already  as  interest  in  fact  and 
interest  in  value,  we  may  now,  summarily  if  crudely,  con- 
trast them  as  science  and  religion. 

Philosophy  of  Nature,  thus,  as  it  pushes  on  to  funda- 
mental problems,  will  always  become  philosophy  of  Religion, 
even  when,  as  "  Naturalism  "  or  "  Materialism  ",  it  con- 
demns all  religion  as  savage  animism  or  effete  superstition; 
even  when,  as  "  Positivism ",  it  elevates  philanthropy  to 
the  dignity  of  a  "  religion  of  humanity  ".  From  this  angle 
the  ultimate  question  is:  what  religion,  if  any,  is  possible 
for  reasonable  men  when  their  choice  is  in  favour  of  accept- 
ing as  dominant  and  decisive  the  methods  and  results  of 
Natural  Science? 


60  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.III 

The  hold  of  Science  on  the  minds  of  educated  men,  and 
its  influence  on  their  philosophical  attitude,  is,  not  without 
justice,  immense.  It  is  amazing  to  reflect  with  how  small 
a  stock  of  scientific  knowledge,  yet  with  what  confidence 
in  the  effectiveness  of  their  endeavours,  men  have  in  past 
ages  carried  on  the  business  of  living  and  built  up  the 
complex  structure  of  their  civilisations.  That  knowledge 
which,  as  Bacon  said,  is  power  and  from  the  acquisition  of 
which  he  hoped  so  much  for  "  the  relief  of  man's  estate  " 
— how  recent  are  its  inception  and  its  triumphs!  Most  of 
our  sciences  hardly  date  more  than  a  century  back,  and 
even  those  which  are  older  have  only  within  this  period 
made  rapid  and  unbroken  progress.  The  control  of  natural 
forces  for  human  ends  was  hardly  more  advanced  in  the 
London  or  Paris  of  1750  than  it  was  in  the  Rome  of 
Augustus  or  the  Athens  of  Pericles.  Most  of  the  inven- 
tions and  discoveries  on  which  modern  industry  and  com- 
merce are  built  up,  are  the  achievements  of  the  last 
century. 

Let  us  stop  for  a  moment  to  recall  what  this  means. 
Here  is  the  picture  as  a  distinguished  scientist  draws  it 
for  us.  "  At  that  date  [1754]  the  steam-engine  had  not  yet 
assumed  a  practical  form,  and  apart  from  some  small  use  of 
water  and  wind  power,  when  mechanical  work  had  to  be 
done  this  was  accomplished  by  the  aid  of  the  muscular  ef- 
fort of  men  and  animals.  The  question  of  power  supply 
was,  in  fact,  in  the  same  condition  that  had  existed  for 
thousands  of  years,  and,  in  consequence,  the  employment 
of  machinery  of  all  descriptions  that  required  power  to 
drive  it  was  extremely  limited.  Nor  as  regards  travel  for 
persons,  or  transit  for  goods,  were  things  very  different. 
The  steamship  was  unthought  of,  and  ocean  journeying 
was  no  faster,  and  but  little  more  certain,  than  in  the 
days  of  Columbus.  Railways  in  the  modern  sense  were  non- 


Ch.III]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  61 

existent,  and  even  the  coaching  era  had  scarcely  begun. 
Travelling  of  all  sorts  was  no  more  rapid  or  more  conven- 
ient than  in  the  days  of  the  Romans.  Indeed,  emperors 
such  as  Hadrian  and  Severus,  who  visited  this  Country 
[England]  in  late  classical  times,  probably  made  the  jour- 
ney to  and  from  Rome  quite  as  expeditiously,  and  very 
likely  even  much  more  comfortably,  than  did  any  traveller 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Furthermore,  at  the  time  of 
which  I  speak,  the  communication  of  intelligence  was 
limited  to  the  speed  at  which  postmen  could  travel,  for, 
of  course,  there  were  no  electric  telegraphs,  such  as  have 
shortened  the  time  of  communication  with  the  ends  of  the 
earth  to  a  few  seconds,  and  have  reduced  even  ambassadors 
to  the  status  of  clerks  at  the  hourly  beck  and  call  of  the 
Home  Government.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  moreover, 
illuminating  gas  and  electric  light  had  still  to  be  invented, 
public  lighting  was  practically  non-existent,  and  even  in 
London  and  other  large  cities  linkmen  with  torches  were 
required  to  light  the  passenger  to  his  home  after  dark.  If 
printing  was  in  use  it  was  slow  and  expensive,  without  any 
of  the  modern  mechanical,  photographic,  and  other  adjuncts 
that  have  rendered  possible  our  numerous  newspapers  and 
the  other  derivatives  of  the  press.  Nor  were  there  any 
proper  systems  either  for  water  supply  or  for  the  disposal 
of  sewage.  Disease,  born  of  filth  and  neglect,  stalked 
through  the  land  practically  unchecked.  Medicine  was  still 
almost  entirely  empiric.  Little  or  nothing  was  known  of 
the  causes  and  nature  of  illness,  of  infection  by  bacilli, 
or  of  treatment  by  inoculation.  Anaesthetics  had  not  yet 
been  applied,  and  the  marvels  of  modern  surgery  were  un- 
dreamt of.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  instances,  but  in 
the  aggregate  it  is  not  inaccurate  to  state  that  at  that 
time  the  general  mode  of  life  had  not  much  improved  on 
what  obtained  in  civilised  Europe  in  the  days  of  the 


62  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.III 

Antonines,  while,  in  some  respects,  it  fell  much  short  of 
this."  l 

It  is  easy  to  paint  for  oneself  the  contrasting  picture  of 
how  much  science,  since  then,  has  achieved  for  the  relief 
of  man's  estate,  in  medicine,  in  chemistry,  in  metallurgy, 
in  engineering,  in  fact  in  all  the  old,  and  many  new,  lines 
of  investigation.  »  Yet  its  triumphs,  alike  in  theory  and  in 
the  application  of  theory  to  life,  with  all  they  have  done 
for  the  enlargement  of  human  power  and  the  multiplication 
of  human  comforts,  have  not  brought  any  obvious  increase 
in  happiness,  or  made  the  living  of  a  good  life  appreciably 
easier.*  The  mastery  over  natural  forces  with  which  science 
has  endowed  us  is,  like  all  power,,  morally  neutral.  It  may 
be  abused  as  well  as  used.  Social  justice  and  the  welfare 
of  manual  workers  have  not  kept  step  with  the  development 
of  machinery  and  of  tools.  'Science  has  armed  the  will  to 
destruction  with  weapons  of  an  efficacy  undreamt  of  by 
previous  generations,  but  it  has  not  made  international 
relations  more  stable  or  less  dangerous/  It  has  repeatedly 
revolutionised  the  art  of  war,  but  it  has  not  taught  men  to 
control  their  own  war-like  tendencies.  It  has  brought  in- 
creased power  for  good  or  evil.  It  has  not  strengthened 
the  will  for  good  against  evil.  Hence  in  the  midst  of  the 
keen  zest  of  research  and  the  confident  hope  of  a  better 
future  to  be  gained  by  intelligent  efforts,  the  mood  of  men 
has  again  and  again  turned  into  discouragement  and  des- 
pair. f  For  all  our  pomp  of  power  and  pride  of  knowledge, 
the  applications  of  science  seem  but  to  make  life  more  com- 
plex and  difficult,  and  to  leave  the  moral  and  religious 
aspirations  of  men  as  unfulfilled  and  unsatisfied  as  ever.* 
Moreover,  the  scientific  theory  of  Nature,  and  of  man's 
place  and  prospects  within  it,  so  far  from  dispelling,  rather 
deepens  this  pessimism.  What  is  its  promise  to  the  human 

1  Science  and  Its  Functions,  by  A.  A.   Campbell   Swinton,  F.R.S., 
Nature,  vol.  100,  no.  2511,  Dec.  1917. 


Ch.  Ill]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  63 

race  but  ultimate  extinction?  It  paints  human  life  as  a 
brief  episode  in  a  cosmic  drama  which  is  as  vast  as  it  is 
meaningless.  It  condemns  human  achievements  to  destruc- 
tion, human  efforts  to  vanity.  •  Loyalty  to  ideals  becomes 
a  futile  rebelliousness  against  an  inexorable  fate.-  The  very 
ideals  may  be  ranked  as  no  better  than  pathetic  dreams. 

Typical  utterances,  illustrative  of  this  view,  are  not  hard 
to  find  in  our  literature.  For  it  is  a  view  which  stirs  the 
feeling  of  self-pity,  and  lends  itself  to  tragic  eloquence. 
Bertrand  Russell's  "  The  Free  Man's  Worship  "  is  no  mere 
voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  of  a  thoughtless  optim- 
ism. In  allowing  his  imagination  to  fill  in  the  colours  where 
science  has  drawn  the  outlines,  he  does  but  put  into  words 
a  widespread  estimate  of  human  destiny.  Here  is  another, 
less  well-known,  but  no  less  characteristic  statement  from 
his  pen.  *  "  The  universe  as  astronomy  reveals  it  is  very 
vast.  How  much  there  may  be  beyond  what  our  tele- 
scopes show,  we  cannot  tell;  but  what  we  can  know  is  of 
unimaginable  immensity.  In  the  visible  world  the  Milky 
Way  is  a  tiny  fragment;  within  this  fragment,  the  solar 
system  is  an  infinitesimal  speck,  and  of  this  speck  our 
planet  is  a  microscopic  dot.  On  this  dot,  tiny  lumps  of 
impure  carbon  and  water,  of  complicated  structure,  with 
somewhat  unusual  physical  and  chemical  properties,  crawl 
about  for  a  few  years,  until  they  are  compounded.  They 
divide  their  time  between  labour  designed  to  postpone  the 
moment  of  dissolution  for  themselves  and  frantic  struggles 
to  hasten  it  for  others  of  their  kind.  Natural  convulsions 
periodically  destroy  some  thousands  or  millions  of  them, 
and  disease  prematurely  sweeps  away  many  more.  These 
events  are  considered  to  be  misfortunes;  but  when  men 
succeed  in  inflicting  similar  destruction  by  their  own  efforts, 
they  rejoice,  and  give  thanks  to  God.  In  the  life  of  the 
solar  system,  the  period  during  which  the  existence  of  man 


64  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.III 

will  have  been  physically  possible  is  a  minute  portion  of 
the  whole;  but  there  is  some  reason  to  hope  that  even 
before  this  period  is  ended  men  will  have  set  a  term  to  his 
own  existence  by  his  efforts  at  mutual  annihilation.  Such 
is  man's  life  viewed  from  the  outside."  l 

A  similar  utterance  in  the  pages  of  Mr.  A.  J.  Bal four's 
"  Foundations  of  Belief  "  used  to  thrill  our  fathers  in  their 
youth.     "  Man — past,  present  and  future — lays  claim  to 
our  devotion.    What,  then,  can  we  say  of  him?    Man,  so 
far  as  natural  science  by  itself  is  able  to  teach  us,  is  no 
longer  the  final  cause  of  the  universe,  the  Heaven-descended 
heir  of  all  the  ages.    His  very  existence  is  an  accident,  his 
story  a  brief  and  transitory  episode  in  the  life  of  one  of 
the  meanest  of  the  planets.    Of  the  combination  of  causes 
which  first  converted  a  dead  organic  compound  into  the 
living  progenitors  of  humanity,  science,  indeed,  as  yet  knows 
nothing.     It  is  enough  that  from  such  beginnings  famine, 
disease,  and  mutual  slaughter,  fit  nurses  of  the  future  lords 
of  creation,  have  gradually  evolved,  after  infinite  travail, 
a  race  with  conscience  enough  to  feel  that  it  is  vile,  and 
intelligence  enough  to  know  that  it  is  insignificant.     We 
survey  the  past,  and  see  that  its  history  is  of  blood  and 
tears,  of  helpless  blundering,  of  wild  revolt,  of  stupid  ac- 
quiescence, of  empty  aspirations. '  We  sound  the  future,  and 
learn  that  after  a  period,  long  compared  with  the  individual 
life,  but  short  indeed  compared  with  the  divisions  of  time 
open  to  our  investigation,  the  energies  of  our  system  will 
decay,  the  glory  of  the  sun  will  be  dimmed,  and  the  earth, 
tideless  and  inert,  will  no  longer  tolerate  the  race  which 
has  for  a  moment  disturbed  its  solitude.    Man  will  go  down 
into  the  pit,  and  all  his  thoughts  will  perish.    The  uneasy 
consciousness,  which  in  this  obscure  corner  has  for  a  brief 
space  broken  the  contented  silence  of  the  universe,  will  be 
,  No.  4643  (April  1919),  p.  232. 


Ch.  HI]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  65 

at  rest.  -  Matter  will  know  itself  no  longer.-  "  Imperishable 
monuments  "  and  "  immortal  deeds  ",  death  itself,  and  love 
stronger  than  death,  will  be  as  though  they  had  never  been. 
Nor  will  anything  that  is  be  better  or  be  worse  for  all  that 
the  labour,  genius,  devotion,  and  suffering  of  man  have 
striven  through  countless  generations  to  effect." 1 

Few,  in  this  chorus  of  agreement,  are  the  dissentient 
voices.  Here  is  one  of  the  most  recent.  Challenging  Rus- 
sell, Professor  R.  B.  Perry  writes:  "To  pretend  to  speak 
for  the  universe  in  terms  of  the  narrow  and  abstract  pre- 
dictions of  astronomy,  is  to  betray  a  bias  of  mind  that  is 
little  less  provincial  and  unimaginative  than  the  most  naive 
anthropomorphism.  Whatx  that  residual  cosmos  which 
looms  beyond  the  border  of  knowledge  shall  in  time  bring 
forth,  no  man  that  has  yet  been  born^can  say.  That  it 
may  overbalance  and  remake  the  little  world  of  things 
known,  and  falsify  every  present  prophecy,  no  man  can 
doubt.  It  is  as  consistent  with  rigorous  thought  to  greet  it 
as  a  promise  of  salvation,  as  to  dread  it  as  a  portent  of 
doom.  And  if  it  be  granted  that  in  either  case  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  over-belief,  of  the  hazard  of  faith,  no  devoted  soul 
can  hesitate." 2 

Perry  thus  denies  the'  alleged  "  fact ".  He  challenges  the 
pretended  "  truth  "  of  the  scientific  prediction  on  the  gen- 
eral ground  of  the  limitation  of  human  knowledge.  From 
ignorance  he  draws  hope.  He  argues,  in  effect,  that  be- 
cause the  worst  is  not  certain  there  is  an  even  chance  of 
the  best,  and  that  we  have  a  moral  right,  not  to  say  a  moral 
duty,  to  stake  our  all  on  this  possibility.  But  suppose  we 
do  not  embark  upon  this  venture  of  the  will  to  believe. 
Suppose  we  accept  the  "  fact "  and  the  "  truth  ",  on  the 
ground  that  we  must  be  guided  by  the  knowledge  which  we 

1  The  Foundations  of  Belief,  pp.  33,  4. 

2  Present  Philosophical  Tendencies,  p.  347. 


66  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.III 

have.  Even  then  our  course  is  not  clear.  For  on  the  all- 
important  issue  our  advisers  speak  with  a  divided  voice. 
And  the  all-important  issue  is  to  determine  what  our  prac- 
tical attitude,  our  conduct,  ought  to  be  on  the  basis  of  these 
scientific  truths,  and  how  we  ought  to  remodel  the  beliefs 
on  which  our  conduct  is  normally  built.  It  is  here  that 
our  authorities  differ  and  leave  us  perplexed.  Balfour, 
finding  it  impossible  to  give,  within  the  frame-work  of  this 
scientific  world-view,  an  adequate  explanation  either  of  the 
existence  of  values,  aesthetic,  moral,  even  cognitive,  or  of 
our  devotion  to  them,  draws  from  this  failure  an  argument  in 
favour  of  Theism.1  He  puts  us  out  of  humour  with  Natural- 
ism in  order  to  make  us  turn  back  more  kindly  to  the 
verities  of  traditional  piety.  Russell,  on  the  other  hand, 
bids  us  accept  the  facts  and  defy  them  to  break  our  spirit. 
To  admit  unwelcome  truths,  is  to  purge  ourselves  from 
fear,  hope,  and  desire.  In  breaking  loose  from  bondage 
to  these  tyrants  of  the  human  spirit,  we  escape  from  the 
littleness  of  self,  and  the  need  for  consoling  illusions.  We 
become  free  to  contemplate,  without  plaint  or  regret,  a  world 
of  facts  which  promises  nothing  but  extinction  to  ourselves 
and  all  we  care  for.  Yet  it  is  only  when  we  have  ceased  to 
expect  or  ask  anything  on  behalf  of  our  ideals,  that  we 
are  free  to  be  loyal  to  them,  with  a  stoic  austerity  and 
ardour  into  which  enters  no  base  alloy  of  compromise  or 
delusion  of  success.2 

The  moral  of  all  these  speculations  is  plain.  The  prob- 
lem of  fact  and  value  is  inescapable,  at  least  for  him  who 
would  be  a  philosopher.  Is  not  this,  indeed,  the  funda- 
mental difference  in  modern  life  between  science  and  phil- 

1  See  for  the  most  recent  statement  of  his  view  his  Gifford  Lectures 
on  Humanism  and  Theism. 

2  For  an  examination  of  this  position,  see  the  author's  The  Religious 
Aspect  of  Bertrand  Russell's  Philosophy,  in  The  Harvard  Theological 
Review,  vol.  ix. 


Ch.III]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  67 

osophy — both  taken  in  their  aspect  of  pure  theory?  The 
sciences,  each  taking  some  special  territory  for  exploration, 
are  content  to  accumulate  facts  and  give,  as  far  as  may  be, 
a  systematic  account  of  them.  Balfour's  dialectics  on  be- 
half of  dogma,  Russell's  despairs  and  heroics,  Perry's  haz- 
ards of  faith  and  over-beliefs — all  alike  the  scientist  can, 
if  he  pleases,  ignore  as  irrelevant  sentimentalities.  His 
enterprise,  within  its  own  limited  sphere,  carries  for  him 
its  own  justification.  "  Within  its  limited  sphere  " — for  it 
is  only  by  narrowing  his  horizon  that  he  purchases  his 
security.  When  science  becomes  philosophy,  or  when  the 
problems  of  philosophy  come  to  be  attempted  on  the  basis 
of  scientific  theories,  the  horizon  at  once  widens  to  the 
whole  range  of  human  experience,  and  troublesome  ques- 
tionings and  misgivings  come  crowding  in.  The  need  of  a 
synthesis  of  fact  and  value  comes  into  view,  and  cannot 
be  ignored  by  the  philosopher.  For  he  is  the  guardian  of 
the  whole  of  experience,  and  his  task  is  to  elicit  from  each 
of  its  forms  the  contribution  which  it  has  to  make  to  a  com- 
prehensive theory  of  the  universe.  Values  and  valuations 
he  cannot  ignore.  Nor  can  he  a  priori  subordinate  them  to 
facts,  for  such  subordination  itself  expresses  an  estimate 
of  value.  "  Ethical  neutrality  "  is  not  for  him.  True  it  is 
that  of  the  danger  of  believing  what  one  wants  to  believe,' 
he  needs  ever  to  remind  himself.  But  he  cannot  seek  safety 
by  settling  facts  first  and  then  letting  values,  under  the 
title  of  desires,  adjust  themselves  as  best  they  may.  For 
there  are  experiences  in  which  he  seems  to  himself  to  per- 
ceive that  the  facts  themselves,  fully  understood  or,  to  put  it 
technically,  viewed  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole, 
are  embodiments  of  value.  And,  at  any  rate,  to  the  phil- 
osopher the  moral  spirit  is  itself  a  fact,  a  force,  or  quality 
of  life,  become  operative  in  human  beings  and  through  them 
in  the  world.  He  cannot  refuse  to  enquire  what  light  such 


68  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.III 

a  fact,  or  rather  such  a  value  present  as  an  effective  force, 
throws  on  the  nature  of  human  beings  and  of  the  universe 
of  which  they  are  parts. 

"  We  are  not  here  concerned  ",  says  Darwin  at  the  end 
of  his  Descent  of  Man,  "  with  hopes  and  fears,  but  only 
with  truth  as  reason  enables  us  to  ascertain  it."  The  an^ 
tithesis  had  its  value  so  long  as  prejudice  disguised  as  dogma 
stood  in  the  way  of  unbiased  research.  But,  if  there  is 
anything  in  the  argument  of  this  essay,  then  to  talk  of 
hopes  and  fears  as  the  enemies  of  truth  is  itself  misleading. 
For  it  diverts  attention  from  the  problem  of  objective  value, 
or  of  "  reality  "  as  being  both  fact  and,  to  the  deepest  in- 
sight, embodiment  of  value.  Hope,  fear,  desire,  are  truly 
secondary,  and  need  to  be  disciplined  if  they  are  not  to 
distort  our  vision.  But  it  would  be  false  to  deny  that  they 
serve  to  direct  attention  to  the  value-aspect  of  the  universe. 
,  They  are  an  intimation  and  a  reminder  that  there  is  more 
to  "  fact "  and  "  truth  "  than  scientific  theory  is  able  to 
reveal;  and  this  not  so  much  because,  as  Perry  has  it,  our 
science  is  small  and  our  ignorance  large,  but  because  science 
builds  its  edifice  of  theory  on  a  relatively  narrow  selection 
of  data  from  among  human  experiences.  It  is  not  true  to 
our  experience  as  a  whole.  It  is  "  abstract ". 

Nor  is  the  result  substantially  different  when  we  appeal, 
like  Darwin,  to  "  reason  ".  For,  as  we  said  a  short  while 
ago,  what  is  the  reasoner  to  reason  with  except  the  materials 
which  human  experience,  in  the  widest  sense  of  that  word, 
puts  at  his  disposal?  What  he  is  to  think  on  any  given 
problem,  and  ultimately  on  the  universe  as  a  whole,  is  bound 
to  depend  on  what  he  has  to  think  with.  There  is  nothing 
else  on  which  it  can  depend.  Reasonings  differ  partly,  no 
doubt,  because  some  minds  are  more  "  logical  "  than  others, 
but  partly,  and  on  philosophical  issues  fundamentally,  be- 
cause as  between  one  mind  and  another  there  are  differences 


Ch.  Ill]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  NATURE  69 

in  the  range,  kind,  and  quality  of  the  experiences  which  are 
their  material  for  reasoning,  and  even  more  because  out 
of  the  same  sort  of  experience  one  mind  can  elicit  more  of 
insight  than  another.  In  any  case,  it  is  well  to  recognise 
clearly,  that  reason  and  logic  are  not  restricted  to  the 
"  facts  "  for  which  we  have  the  warrant  of  sense-perception 
and  experiment.  It  would  be  a  fatal  mistake  of  method,  as 
well  as  contrary  to  the  practice  of  all  the  great  philosophers, 
to  exclude  the  things  which  are  of  profoundest  human 
concern  from  the  competence  of  "  reason  "  and  from  the 
field  of  philosophy,  by  setting  them  down  as  matters  of 
mere  feeling,  unreasoning  itself  and  incapable  of  furnish- 
ing insights  which  reason  can,  and  indeed  must,  use  in  its 
endeavour  to  frame  a  world-view  which  shall  be  true  to  the 
whole  of  our  experience. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ON  "  DOUBTING  THE  REALITY  OF  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  " 

IT  is  not  hard  to  understand  why  the  world  which  we  call 
external,  physical,  material,  is,  to  ordinary  thought,  par 
excellence  the  "  real "  world,  and  why  the  problem  of  vin- 
dicating its  "  reality  "  against  attacks  such  as  those  which 
"  idealists  "  are  supposed  to  make  upon  it,  is  one  of  the 
persistent  problems  at  any  rate  of  modern  philosophy. 

No  doubt,  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves  how  narrow,  after 
all,  this  concept  of  the  "  real "  world  is — how  much  that 
is  undeniably  real  it  fails,  on  any  plausible  interpretation 
of  the  terms  "  external ",  etc.,  to  include.  Still,  in  a  very 
genuine  sense  the  case  of  the  external  world  is  a  crucial  one. 
At  all  times  men  have  been  found  to  believe  in  the  existence 
of  things  which  do  not  in  fact  exist.  The  very  sense-data 
which  we  treat  as  evidences  of  the  reality  of  physical  things 
are  deceptively  aped  by  dreams  and  hallucinations.  The 
difficulty  of  distinguishing  with  certainty  what  is  real  and 
what  is  unreal,  when  in  either  case  the  experiences,  be  they 
sense-data  or  images,  are  equally  vivid,  lends  colour  to  the 
theory  that  nothing  exists  except  what  is  perceived  by  some 
mind,  for  so  long  as  it  is  perceived;  and  that  the  existence 
of  "  matter  ",  if  not  to  be  denied  outright,  must  be  inter- 
preted in  keeping  with  this  esse-est-percipi  principle.  At 
the  same  time,  whilst  this  "  subjective  idealism  "  throws 
doubt  on  the  existence  of  anything  other  than,  or  beyond, 
the  percipient's  actual  sense-data  here  and  now,  from  quite 
a  different  angle  scientific  theory  threatens  to  discredit  these 
sense-data  as  mere  "  mental  impressions  ",  effects  produced 
in  a  perceiver's  mind  by  the  action,  on  his  sense-organs  and 

70 


Ch.IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  71 

nervous  system,  of  material  objects  conceived  in  terms  of 
imperceptible,  and  hence  hypothetical,  particles  and  forces. 
Every  student  of  modern  philosophy  is  familiar  with  the 
maze  of  polemical  discussion  which  has  enveloped  the 
issues  thus  summarily  indicated.  Taking  the  conflicting 
theories  as  they  find  them,  philosophers  may  well  wonder 
what  exactly  it  is  in  which  the  "  reality  "  of  the  external 
world  consists.  Extreme  views  on  this  problem  confront 
one  another.  For  the  orthodox  physicist,  reality,  as  it  has 
been  picturesquely  put,  is  a  "  mad  dance  of  electrons ", 
and  sense-data,  for  all  that  they  are  the  physicist's  only 
direct  evidence  of  the  existence  of  any  external  world  what- 
ever, are  counted  as  "  merely  mental "  and  "  subjective  ". 
On  the  other  side,  the  physicist  who  has  turned  "  phenom- 
enalist ",  joins  positivists,  empiricists,  and  subjective 
idealists  among  philosophers  in  declaring  for  the  indubitable 
reality  of  sense-data,  and  rejecting,  as  hypothetical  fictions, 
all  imperceptible  forces  or  entities — in  short,  the  orthodox 
physicist's  whole  theoretical  apparatus  of  "  matter  "  and 
"  energy  ". 

Moreover,  our  difficulties  do  not  begin  and  end  with  the 
relation  of  the  facts  of  sense  to  the  concepts  of  physics. 
Behind  the  problem  of  sense-data  and  matter  there  looms 
up  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  matter  to  life  and  to 
mind  or  consciousness.  Mechanism  and  vitalism  compete 
directly  as  rival  interpretations  of  the  facts  of  biology.1 
Just  as  the  mechanical  theory  of  nature,  from  its  home  in 
the  physico-chemical  sciences,  is  ever  tending  to  overflow 
the  whole  field  of  Nature  and  engulf  biology  and  psychology, 
so,  in  return,  there  are  not  lacking  attempts  to  borrow 
from  biology  the  concept  of  life  or  vital  impulse,  or  from 
psychology  the  concept  of  mind  or  consciousness,  as  a 
directive  factor,  and  apply  them  to  all  natural  phenomena. 

1  See  chs.  vi  and  vii. 


72  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

Physics,  biology,  and  psychology  have  in  turn  supplied  the 
fundamental  concepts  for  metaphysical  theories.  We  are 
here  in  a  region  of  metaphysical  experiments  where  the 
alternatives  range  from  the  materialism  of,  say,  Haeckel, 
to  the  vitalism  of  Bergson  and  the  panpsychism  of  C.  A. 
Strong.  Confronting  all  these  alike  are  philosophies  seek- 
ing to  maintain  and  defend  the  orders  and  distinctions 
which  in  common  thought  we  acknowledge  and  live  by,  and 
which  are  reflected  accurately  enough  in  the  system  of 
natural  sciences.  There  Nature  is  taken  as  a  hierarchy  of 
inorganic  or  non-living,  and  organic  or  living.  The  latter 
in  turn  is  divided  into  the  living  but  not  conscious,  and  the 
living  which  is  also  "  besouled  "/  Moreover,  this  hierarchy 
presents  not  merely  a  classificatory  scheme,  but  also  an 
evolutionary  series,  in  which  the  lower  and  earlier  stages 
endure  and  persist,  as  basis  and  environment  for  the  higher 
and  later.  We  may  even,  within  the  realm  of  living  bodies 
which  are  besouled,  distinguish  degrees  or  levels  of  soul — 
beings  which  can  sense  and  feel  but  not  think  from  beings 
which  can  also  think  and  reason,  or  beings  who  are  merely 
conscious  from  beings  who  are  also  self-conscious.  At  this 
last  point,  however,  we  shall  probably  be  held  definitely 
to  pass  beyond  the  legitimate  limits  of  a  philosophy  of 
Nature.  For  self-consciousness  is  a  "  reflexive  "  phenom- 
enon in  which  the  spectator-standpoint,  with  its  self-forget- 
fulness,  its  interest  in  the  object  for  its  own  sake,  be  it  an 
interest  of  knowledge  or  of  aesthetic  enjoyment,  is  tran- 
scended. This  is  not  to  deny  that  the  attitude  of  objectivity 
can  be  restored,  or  regained,  at  a  higher  level  after  the  in- 
clusion of  self-consciousness.  Indeed,  we  may  hold  this  to 
be  essential,  and  the  supreme  task  of  philosophy.  Mean- 
while, philosophy  of  Nature  moves  at  the  level  of  thought 
for  which  the  spectator-attitude  is  characteristic.  The 
beseelt. 


Ch.IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  73 

spectator  here  does  not  take  into  account  that,  after  all, 
he  is  not  merely  taking  stock  of  a  spectacle,  but  is,  in  the 
very  act  of  doing  so,  himself  a  part  of  the  spectacle,  an 
agent  in  the  play.  When  he  does  take  account  of  this,  he 
passes  from  interest  in  the  object  to  interest  in  the  study 
and  theory  of  the  object,  from  philosophy  of  Nature  to 
philosophy  of  Science;  in  short,  to  theory  of  knowledge. 
But  this  is  not  the  only,  nor  the  most  important,  effect  of 
the  turn  to  self-consciousness.  More  important  is  the 
reminder  how  completely  the  meaning  of  "  Nature  ",  even 
in  the  utmost  extension  which  current  usage  permits  us  to 
give  to  the  term,  fails  to  include  all  those  achievements  and 
activities  which  we  may  conveniently  sum  up  in  the  term 
"  Civilisation  ".  The  biological  concepts  which  suffice  for 
dealing  with  human  beings  as  an  animal  species  fail  to  serve 
for  the  analysis  of  morality  or  religion,  art  or  science;  and 
equally  patent  is  the  failure  of  any  psychology  the  orienta- 
tion of  which  is  towards  "  naturalism  "  rather  than  towards 
what  Hegel  called  a  "  phenomenology  of  spirit ".  At  some 
point  or  other  the  difference  between  Naturwissenschajt 
and  Geisteswissenschajt  demands  recognition;  and  there  is 
no  way  of  avoiding  this  recognition  and  still  doing  justice 
to  the  facts.  The  turn  to  self-consciousness,  as  we  called 
it  above,  means,  in  fact,  not  this  or  that  individual's  atten- 
tion to  his  private  self,  but  the  philosopher's  awakening  to 
the  ideal  values  which  the  lives  and  institutions  of  human 
beings  very  literally  embody — which  through  men  and 
women  of  flesh  and  blood  ("  physico-chemical  machines  ", 
if  we  like)  are  being  realised  in,  and  by  use  of,  that  "  Na- 
ture "  of  which  they  are  parts.  It  is,  we  suggest,  precisely 
in  the  participation  in  the  service  of  these  ideal  values,  that 
the  true  function  of  "  soul  ",  "  mind  ",  or  "  consciousness  " 
in  individual  human  beings  is  to  be  found."  1 

1  See  ch.  viii  ad  fin. 


74  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

To  mention  "  ideal  values  "  is,  of  course,  to  open  up  the 
whole  problem  of  teleology  which  forms,  as  it  were,  the 
upper  limit  of  the  philosophy  of  Nature,  the  bridge  from 
Nature  to  Spirit.  So  far  as  the  mechanical  theory  of  Nature 
prevails,  there  is  no  room  for  the  category  of  purpose.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  only  by  doing  violence  to  the  facts  that 
biologists  can  avoid  expressing  themselves  in  language  of 
teleological  import.  At  the  same  time,  biologists  are  rightly 
reluctant  to  use  the  term  "  purpose  "  in  any  sense  which 
might  suggest  the  presence  of  conscious  desire,  plan,  or 
design  where  no  evidence  for  such  consciousness  is  to  be 
found.  This  raises  the  very  difficult  question  whether  the 
psychological  sense  of  purpose,  as  aim  or  object  of  desire, 
can  be  extended  by  analogy,  as  the  panpsychists  pro- 
pose to  do,  through  the  organic  even  to  the  inorganic,  or 
whether  conscious  purpose  in  human  beings  is  not  a 
special  form  of  a  deeper-lying  unconscious  purposiveness 
in  the  total  structure  of  the  world.  The  suggestion  may 
be  ventured  that  a  teleology  in  terms,  not  so  much  of 
conscious  purpose,  as  of  objective  value  may  meet  the 
situation.1 

But  we  do  not  need  to  pursue  these  ramifications  of  the 

•  philosophy  of  Nature  in  order  to  see  that  the  special  prob- 
lems of  the  relation  of  matter,  life,  mind,  which  the  spectacle 
of  Nature  raises,  are  forms  of  the  general  problem,  how  to 
order  and  how  to  interpret  the  sense-data  which  are  what 
we  immediately  experience  of  Nature.  To  doubt  the  "  real- 

/  ity  "  of  the  world  of  sense  is  to  doubt  a  theory  or  interpreta- 
tion of  the  sense-data.  The  very  distinction  among  objects 
of  experience  between  those  which  are  real  and  those  which 
are  unreal  is  a  matter  of  theory.  Hence,  before  entering  in 
later  essays  on  the  special  problems  of  physical  objects,  liv- 
ing beings,  and  minds,  we  cannot  do  better  than  explore,  in 
1  See  ch.  vi. 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  75 

this  essay,  in  what  ways  it  is  possible  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  the  world  of  sense. 

There  is  an  old  tradition  in  philosophy  which  holds  such 
doubt  to  be  the  gate  to  wisdom.  But  many  of  the  grounds 
which  have,  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  been  assigned 
in  support  of  it,  have  lost  their  appeal  for  our  scientifically- 
minded  age,  or  at  least  do  not  weigh  with  us  as  heavily  as 
once  they  did.  The  Eastern  doctrines  of  the  senses  as 
spreading  a  veil  of  illusion  over  reality,  and  of  the  elabor- 
ate ascetic  regimen  for  mind  and  body  by  which  the  student 
must  discipline  himself  for  penetrating  to  the  reality  behind 
the  veil,  have  never  profoundly  affected  the  main  current  of 
Western  thought.  Most  of  the  great  philosophers  of  the 
West,  certainly  since  the  time  of  the  Renaissance,  have  been 
men  of  the  world  as  well  as  students  and  thinkers.  They 
have  not  tried  to  be  "  holy  "  men,  set  apart  from  their 
fellows  and  the  problems  of  contemporary  life.  They  have 
not,  even  when  they  were  professors,  spent  their  days  in 
meditation  and  mortification  of  the  flesh  in  order  to  achieve, 
individually,  the  blessedness  of  union  with  the  One  behind 
the  veil.  Again  the  dualism,  commonly,  though  perhaps 
erroneously,  ascribed  to  Plato,  between  the  flux  of  sensa- 
tions and  the  immutable,  imperishable  Forms,  is  not  char- 
acteristic of  the  best  Western  philosophy,  though  its  in- 
fluences have  been,  and  will  continue  to  be,  felt  again  and 
again.  It  is  not  on  such  grounds  as  these  that,  in  recent 
discussions,  the  reality  of  the  world  of  sense  has  been 
doubted.  Present-day  doubts  fasten,  in  part,  upon  the 
distinction  between  what  is  real  and  what  is  unreal  in  ex-« 
perience,  and  in  part  upon  what  the  "  real "  nature  of  the 
real  is.  In  either  case  the  issue  turns  on  the  truth  of  a 
theory,  an  interpretation;  be  it  the  truth  of  the  classifica- 
tion which  excludes  from  the  "  real "  world  the  objects  of 


76  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

dreams,  hallucinations,  and  other  abnormal  experiences  as 
"  unreal  ";  or  be  it  the  truth  of  one  of  the  many  theories 
concerning  the  nature  of  some,  or  all,  of  the  objects  which 
are  real. 

That  the  problem  of  the  "  reality "  of  anything  can 
always  be  turned  into  a  problem  of  the  truth  of  a  theory 
concerning  that  something,  is  easily  illustrated  by  reflecting 
what  is  meant  by  speaking  of  a  "  world  of  sense  ".  Partic- 
ular sense-data  here  and  now  cannot  be  doubted.  Taken 
thus  abstractly,  they  assert  nothing,  they  mean  nothing. 
They  simply  are.  It  has  unfortunately  become  the  fashion 
to  speak  of  them  as  being  "  real ",  when  what  is  meant  is 
merely  that  they  are,  occur,  are  "  had  "  (as  Driesch  puts 
it)  or  experienced.  In  this  sense,  of  course,  their  "  reality  " 
is  not  in  debate.  But  as  soon  as  they  are  taken  to 
mean  something,  are  classified  in  some  way,  are  regarded 
as  being  related,  as  having  implications  and  consequences, 
they  are  caught  up  in  a  network  of  theory,  and  their  reality 
in  this  sense  is,  at  once,  open  to  doubt,  but  open  also  to 
confirmation.  Suppose,  e.g.,  that  you  hear  a  faint  sound, 
and  then  begin  to  wonder  whether  it  is  a  real  sound  or  an 
imaginary  one.  (The  point  remains  the  same  if  you  wonder 
whether  you  really  heard  a  sound  or  only  imagined  that 
you  did).  Here,  at  once,  a  theory  is  at  stake.  If  the  sound 
you  heard  was  real,  it  will  be  connected  with  other  things 
in  the  universe  in  a  way  very  different  from  that  in  which 
the  imaginary  sound  is  connected.  Or  take  a  somewhat 
more  complicated  case.  Were  the  voices  heard  by  Joan  of 
Arc  real  or  were  they  auditory  hallucinations?  In  either 
case  there  is  no  doubt  that  Joan  really  experienced  some- 
thing. But  what  that  something  was  or  meant,  a  divine 
presence  calling  her  to  save  France,  or  a  symptom  of 
religious  hysteria — this  is  the  issue  of  reality  in  the 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  77 

pregnant   sense   of   the   true   nature   of   that   which   she 
experienced. 

The  occurrence,  then,  of  sense-data  at  the  moment  when 
they  are  being  had,  is  indubitable.  But  to  talk  of  a 
"  world  "  of  sense-data  is  at  once  a  theory.  It  signalises 
the  step  from  data  to  interpretation.  Do  we  sense  a  world? 
The  present  moment's  tissue  of  colours,  sounds,  smells, 
touches — is  this  a  world?  No  and  Yes.  No,  if  we  think 
of  their  disorder,  as  given,  of  their  mutual  irrelevancies, 
of  their  fragmentariness.  Yes,  if  we  think  of  the  order 
and  meaning  which  we  have  learnt  to  discover  in  them  and 
which  we  now  habitually  find  there.  But,  certainly,  in  dis- 
covering order  and  meaning,  we  have  had  to  go  beyond  the 
present  moment's  data.  We  have  had  to  call  in  memories  of 
previous  experiences,  correlating,  synthesising,  identifying 
their  data  with  those  of  present  experience.  We  have  learnt 
to  regard  the  latter  as  a  fragment  of  something  more — of 
things  sensed  in  the  past  or  to  be  sensed  in  the  future,  or, 
more  generally  still,  capable  of  being  sensed  ("  sensibilia  "). 
Thus  in  all  directions  the  force  of  "  world  "  carries  us  be- 
yond the  here-and-now  of  sense-data.  The  moment's  actual 
data  are  but  the  spear-point  of  the  world  of  "possible 
experience  ".  Again,  "  world  "  connotes  system,  an  ordered 
whole.  But  what  is  there  of  order  in  our  actual  sense-data 
here  and  now?  We  might  mention  co-existence  in  space, 
and  succession  in  time,  but  so  far  as  sense-data  exhibit 
such  order,  they  constitute  little  more  than  a  "  Together  " 
— a  continuum,  or  changing  manifold,  which  is  barely  dis- 
tinguishable from  a  chaos.  More  pregnantly,  order  means 
relevance,  or  logical  connection — more  particularly  con- 
nection according  to  some  "  law  "  or  "  universal  principle  ". 
It  means,  too,  the  grouping  of  sense-data  into  complexes 
such  that  we  are  able  to  recognise  and  identify  a  complex 
when  only  one,  or  a  few,  of  its  constituent  members  are 


78  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  IV 

given. l  Perceiving  some,  we  "  know  "  what  others  belong 
to  the  group,  and  may,  or  will,  be  perceived  by  us.  Such 
complexes  of  sense-data,  actual  and  possible,  are,  according 
to  phenomenalist  thinkers,  all  that  we  mean  by  individual 
"  things  ",  either  in  science  or  in  practical  life.  But  of 
course,  such  synthesis  of  sense-data  into  things  is  once  more 
"  interpretation  ",  i.e.,  expansion  of  what  is  given  here  and 
now,  with  the  help  of  previous  experience  and  subject  to 
verification  by  future  experience.  There  is  nothing  that 
brings  home  to  us  so  clearly  the  theoretical  character  of 
this  whole  process  of  the  discovery  of  an  orderly  world  in 
the  chaos  of  sense-data,  than  to  reflect  on  the  fact  that  the 
synthesis  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  involves  the 
identification  of  a  datum  here  and  now  with  other  data  ex- 
perienced on  other  occasions  and  in  other  contexts,  nay  even 
its  identification  with  .data  of  different  kinds,  as  all  aspects, 
or  qualities,  of  the  "  same "  individual  thing.  But  this 
jdentification  of  differences  is  no  arbitrary  and  subjective 
device  of  human  thinking.  On  the  contrary,  in  it  we  follow 
and  obey  the  objective  principle  of  identity  in  difference 
without  which  there  are  neither  "  things  ",  nor  a  "  world  " 
of  things;  without  which,  in  short,  any  interpretation  of 
sense-data  is  impossible. 

The  view  here  maintained,  that  a  question  of  "  reality  " 
always  discloses,  on  analysis,  a  question  of  the  truth  of  a 
theory,  may  also  be  illustrated  by  considering  the  terms 
"  physical  ",  "  material  ",  "  external  world  ",  which  are 
commonly  treated  as  synonyms  of  "  world  of  sense ". 
Every  one  of  these  adjectives  has  a  theoretical  import.  It 
expresses  the  interpretation  of  sense-data  in  terms  of  some 
set  of  concepts,  involving,  as  a  rule,  a  classification  of 
things,  e.g.,  material  and  mental,  spatial  and  non-spatial, 
etc.  At  the  same  time,  a  moment's  consideration  suffices  to 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  79 

show  that  none  of  the  alleged  synonyms  is  co-extensive  with 
the  "  world  of  sense  ".  The  physical  world,  for  example, 
is  no  doubt  a  world  of  sense  in  that  the  physicist,  in  his 
observing,  experimenting,  verifying,  is  guided  by  sense-data 
throughout.  But  there  are  many  familiar  sense-experiences 
of  which  he  takes  no  account,  and  which  he  methodically 
excludes  from  the  evidence  on  which  he  builds  his  theories. 
No  element  can  be  known  in  chemistry,  no  force  or  energy 
in  physics,  unless  its  presence  becomes  sensibly  apparent, 
however  indirectly,  through  some  difference  in  what  we 
observe.  The  most  advanced  theories  of  the  constitution 
of  "  matter  ",  whether  they  be  framed  in  terms  of  atoms, 
or  ions,  or  electro-magnetic  discharges,  or  whatnot,  rest  in 
the  last  resort  on  specific  differences  in  sense-data.  But 
the  sense-data  which  are  thus  relevant  for  physical  theory 
are  not  co-extensive  with  the  world  of  sense-data.  The 
latter  is  much  wider,  and  more  miscellaneous  than  the 
world  of  physics.  The  physicist  practises  a  vigorous  selec- 
tion among  the  actual  data  which  he  shares  with  non- 
scientific  mortals.  He  ignores  the  beauty  or  ugliness  of 
physical  things.  Abnormal  and  supernormal  experiences 
do  not  count  as  evidences  to  him.  He  does  not  admit  the 
objects  and  events  witnessed  in  dreams  as  facts  to  which 
his  theories  have  to  be  adjusted.  Yet,  as  Russell  has  well 
reminded  us,  "  dreams  and  waking  life,  in  our  first  efforts 
at  construction,  must  be  treated  with  equal  respect;  it  is 
only  by  some  reality  not  merely  sensible  that  dreams  can 
be  condemned." *  In  fact,  physical  theory  both  rests  on, 
and  results  in,  a  classification  of  objects  of  experience,  such 
that  those  which  satisfy  the  laws  of  physics  are  admitted, 
whilst  the  rest  is  left  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  context  of  some 
other  theory. 

Again,  the  term  "  material  world ",  if  not  used  as  a 
1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  86.    Russell's  italics. 


8o  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IV 

mere  equivalent  of  "  physical  world ",  imports  into  the 
problem  of  the  reality  of  the  world  of  sense  a  burden  of 
theory  of  its  own.  For  by  long-standing  association  it  sug- 
gests its  opposite,  the  immaterial,  commonly  identified  with 
the  mental  or  spiritual.  Between  them  these  terms  in- 
vite to  a  sorting  out  of  all  things  in  the  universe  into  two 
kinds,  material  things  or  bodies,  immaterial  things  or  souls. 
When  this  familiar  dualism  of  popular  metaphysics,  canon- 
ised in  philosophy  by  Descartes,  is  applied  to  sense-data, 
we  find  ourselves  asking  such  questions  as,  In  what  sense, 
if  any,  can  bodies  or  souls  be  perceived  by  the  senses?  and, 
Should  sense-data  be  pigeon-holed  under  "  body  "  or  under 
"  mind  "?  We  shall,  clearly,  come  to  very  different  con- 
clusions about  the  reality  of  the  world  of  sense,  according 
as  we  set  down  colours,  sounds,  etc.,  as  "  sensations  ",  and, 
therefore,  as  psychical  states,  modes  of  consciousness,  con- 
tents of  minds,  or,  else,  as  the  very  stuff  that  bodies  are 
made  of,  or  as  qualities  of  physical  things.  If  we  follow 
the  psychologists  of  the  analytic  and  introspective  school 
in  enumerating  colour,  sound,  smell,  etc.,  as  so  many  dif- 
ferences in  the  "  quality  "  of  "  sensations  ",l  we  ought, 
strictly,  to  speak  not  of  a  sensation  of  blue,  but  of  a  blue 
sensation;  not  of  seeing  a  blue  thing,  but  of  having  a  blue 
state  of  consciousness.  Similar  language  would  seem  to 
be  demanded  by  the  view  that  all  sense-data  are  "  subjec- 
tive ",  i.e.,  mental  or  intra-mental,  on  the  ground  that  the 
"  real ",  i.e.,  material,  objects  must  be  conceived  in  terms 
exclusively  of  "  primary  qualities  ",  and  hence  as  colour- 
less, soundless,  tasteless.  This  is  the  view  which  a  dis- 
gusted critic,  quoted  by  Bosanquet,2  sums  up  in  the  im- 

1  Some  writers  of  this  school,  e.g.,  Professor  G.  F.  Stout,  combine 
with  this  the  view  that  the  qualities  of  sensations  mediate  our  knowl- 
edge  of   "sensible   qualities"    inhering   in   physical   objects.     Cf.   his 
Manual  of  Psychology,  3rd  edition. 

2  Adamson  Lecture,  The  Distinction  Between  Mind  and  Its  Objects, 
p.  7. 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  81 

patient  exclamation:  "What  a  world  is  that  which  science 
pronounces  real;  dark,  cold,  and  shaking  like  a  jelly." 
Against  either  view  common  sense  rebels,  and  so  does  all 
philosophy  which  cares  about  vindicating  for  the  familiar 
things  of  our  "  material "  environment  their  panoply  of 
sense-qualities.  Those  neo-realists  who  declare  sense-data 
to  be  "  non-mental ",  in  order,  by  the  magic  virtue  of  this 
term,  to  plant  them  safely  "  out  there  "  in  the  "  real  "  world, 
are,  at  least,  guided  by  a  sound  instinct,  whatever  one  may 
think  of  their  language.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  dualism 
of  body  and  mind,  or  matter  and  spirit,  considered  as  the 
two  substances  of  which  the  universe  is  made  up,  has  been 
the  greatest  trouble-maker  in  philosophy  since  Descartes' 
time.  Indeed,  the  history  of  modern  philosophy  might  be 
described  as  the  history  of  the  efforts  to  cast  off  the  meshes 
of  this  metaphysical  net  and  return  to  an  unprejudiced 
"  phenomenology  ",  i.e.,  a  study  of  appearances,  in  their 
diversity,  their  order,  their  mutual  interdependence,  their 
total  meaning. 

When,  lastly,  we  try  to  take  "  external  world "  as  a 
synonym  of  "  world  of  sense  ",  once  more  we  find  ourselves 
caught  in  a  net  of  theories.  External,  strictly,  means  spa- 
tial. The  external  world  is  the  world  of  things  in  space,  of 
res  extensae.  But  do  all  sense-data  belong  to  the  same; 
spatial  system?  Are  the  spaces  of  dream-worlds,  or  of  the 
many  worlds  of  imagination,  identical  with  the  space  of  the 
waking  world  which  we  call  "  real "?  Those  who,  with 
Bertrand  Russell  believe  in  the  privacy  of  sense-data,  have 
as  many  private  spaces  to  deal  with  as  there  are  sets  of 
private  sense-data.  Moreover,  there  is  the  problem  for 
them  of  explaining  the  relations  of  these  private  spaces  to 
the  "  public  "  space  of  the  physical  world.  The  situation 
is  hardly  more  comfortable  for  those  who  endow  "  sensa- 
tions ",  taken  as  mental  states,  with  the  quality  of  "  exten- 


82  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

sity  ",  and  then  labour  to  show  how  our  "  idea  "  of  the  real 
space  of  the  non-mental,  physical  world  is  developed  from 
this  basis.  In  all  these  ways  the  "  reality  "  of  the  world 
of  sense,  taken  as  "  external ",  shows  itself  to  be  a 
matter  of  theory,  and,  as  such,  open  to  argument.  And 
in  all  this  we  have  not  even  touched  on  that  other  sense 
of  "  external ",  in  which  the  reality  of  the  external 
world  means  its  independence,  in  existence  and  char- 
acter, of  being  perceived  or  known  by  any  mind  what- 
soever. 

If  in  our  discussion  of  the  reality  of  the  world  of  sense 
up  to  this  point  we  have  roamed  far  and  wide,  our  excuse 
must  be  that  a  philosopher's  argument,  like  the  wind,  blow- 
eth  him  whithersoever  it  listeth,  but  that,  at  least,  it  is  his 
duty  to  expose  himself  to  all  the  winds  of  heaven  and  catch 
them,  if  he  can,  in  his  sail.  And  our  result,  so  far,  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows.  The  "  world  of  sense  ",  we  find, 
covers  all  sense-data,  but  it  covers  also  their  interpretation 
as  a  world.  If  we  ask  concerning  the  "  reality  "  of  this 
world,  and  do  not  by  this  term  mean  simply  the  givenness 
(so  to  speak)  of  the  sense-data,  we  can  get  no  answer  ex- 
cept in  terms  of  some  theory  as  to  what  sort  of  a  world  it 
is — what  are  its  constituents,  what  its  structure  and  order, 
what  its  meaning.  These  theories,  we  find,  fall,  broadly, 
into  two  groups.  One  set  is  concerned  with  the  distinction 
between  what  is  real  and  what  is  unreal.  The  other  is  con- 
cerned with  the  real  nature  of  the  real  world.  The  difficulty 
of  drawing  a  clear  line  of  demarcation  between  these  two 
groups  results  chiefly  from  the  tendency  to  restrict  the 
"real"  world  to  that  selection  from  the  whole  world  of 
sense  which  is  dealt  with  by  the  physical  sciences,  thus 
excluding  as  unreal  dreams  and  suchlike  sense-experiences, 
but  threatening  with  unreality  also  all  those  characters  and 


Ch.IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  83 

relations  of  real  things  which  are  not  dealt  with  by  the 
physical  sciences. 

The  conclusion  which  appears  to  emerge  is  that  the 
"  reality  "  of  anything  may  be  doubted  in  one  of  two  senses. 
We  may  doubt  either  its  being  real,  or  its  being  really  so- 
and-so.  In  the  former  sense,  "  to  be  real "  is  a  synonym 
for  "  to  exist ",  and  what  is  real  is  then  opposed  to  the 
unreal,  the  non-existent,  the  imaginary.  In  the  latter  sense, 
"  really  "  is  synonymous  with  "  truly  ",  and  emphasises 
adverbially  the  truth  of  the  judgment  that  something  is  so- 
and-so.  Both  senses  appear  to  be  combined  intentionally 
when  the  universe,  as  a  whole,  is  spoken  of  as  "  Reality  " 
or  "  The  Reality  ",  the  meaning  being  "  all  that  exists  in 
its  true,  or  real,  character." 

Another  way  of  putting  the  difference  is  to  say  that  the 
real,  in  the  existential  sense,  is  opposed  by  the  unreal,  but 
the  real,  in  the  sense  of  the  true,  by  the  apparent  or  the 
false.  The  distinction  between  "  reality  "  and  "  appear- 
ance "  will  then  belong  to  this  latter  problem  of  the  true 
nature  of  the  actual  or  existent. 

Or,  again,  we  may  say  that  the  former  distinction  leads 
to  a  classification  of  objects  as  real  or  unreal,  existent  or 
non-existent.  The  latter  distinction  leads  to  an  ordering  of 
judgments  concerning  any  object  of  experience  according 
to  the  "  degree  "  of  their  truth. 

It  is  in  the  former  sense  that  we  ask  whether  such-and- 
such  things  exist;  it  is  in  the  latter  sense  that,  assured 
of  existence,  we  ask  whether  a  thing  is  really  so-and-so. 
The  one  sense  concerns  the  "  that  ",  the  other  the  "  what  ". 
In  the  one  sense  we  may  decide,  after  enquiring,  that 
"there  exists  no  such  thing";  in  the  other  sense  we 
may  be  sure  that  there  is  something  there  without 
knowing  what  it  is,  or  whether  our  judgments  of  its 
nature  are  true. 


84  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IV 

Can  we  throw  any  further  light  on  this  distinction?  Can 
we,  perhaps,  get  behind  it?  Let  us  consider  some  examples 
of  it.  Let  us  experiment  with  it. 

As  synonym  of  "  true  ",  "  real  "  often  has  the  force  of 
"  genuine ",  and  asserts  the  fulfilment,  as  it  were,  of  a 
claim.  Thus  when  we  say,  that  somebody  is  "  a  real  man  " 
the  meaning  is  that  he  embodies  all  a  man  ought  to  be, 
realises  our  ideal  of  manhood.  The  same  thought  might 
be  expressed  by  saying,  that  he  is  a  man  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  i.e.,  in  the  full  or  maximum  sense.  The  judg- 
ment would  reflect  the  fact  that  an  object  may  realise  the 
character  by  which  we  classify  it,  more  or  less  perfectly. 
Being  of  the  kind  it  is,  a  thing  is  always  more  or  less  good 
of  its  kind.  For  every  character  by  which  we  can  classify 
may  also  supply  a  standard  for  estimating  perfection  in  that 
respect.  Thus,  if  our  example  were  to  be  challenged  by 
saying  "  the  person  you  refer  to  is  not  a  real  man  ",  or, 
"  not  really  a  man  ",  the  normal  meaning  would  be  that  he 
falls  short,  certainly  of  the  ideal,  perhaps  of  the  average, 
of  manhood  by  being,  say,  cowardly  or  effeminate.  Only 
secondarily,  or  in  unusual  contexts,  would  the  meaning  be 
that  the  object  referred  to  is  not  a  man  at  all,  but,  say, 
a  wax-figure  made  to  look  like  a  "  real  "  man,  or  a  stump  of 
a  tree  mistaken  on  a  foggy  day  for  a  human  figure.  Here 
the  very  classification  would  be  challenged,  but  the  chal- 
lenge would  only  bring  to  light  the  fact  that  the  mistaken 
classification  was  suggested — one  might  almost  say,  de- 
manded— by  the  cunning  fake,  or  by  the  shape  and  height 
of  the  stump.  In  either  case,  the  judgment  rests  on  evidence 
which  further  evidence  belies.  There  is  a  claim  not  sus- 
tained, a  character  suggested,  but  not  proved  genuine.  So, 
again,  a  sleeper  who  awakes  with  the  vivid  recollection  upon 
him  of  a  scene  just  witnessed,  may  be  at  a  loss  to  decide 
between  dream  and  real  fact.  The  point  to  notice  here  is 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  85 

that  the  data  in  dreams  are  interpreted  as  spontaneously 
as  data  in  waking  perception.1  The  whole  complex  of  data 
and  interpretation  is  taken  by  the  dreamer  not  only  as  really 
so,  but  as  real,  until  conflict  with  the  experiences  of  waking 
life  suggests  doubts.  Vice  versa,  the  events  of  waking  expe- 
rience are  occasionally  so  startling  or  incredible  as  to  sug- 
gest doubts  whether  one  be  not  dreaming.2  In  all  cases  what 
is  doubted  is  the  genuineness  of  the  claim  of  something  to 
be  real  or  to  have  really  the  character  which  it  appears  to 
have. 

In  considering  examples  such  as  these,  and  especially 
examples  drawn  from  the  comparison  of  dream  and  waking 
experience,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  certain  pull  towards 
an  assimilation  to  each  other  of  the  problems  whether  some- 
thing is  real  and  whether  it  is  really  so-and-so.  In  both 
cases  we  deal  with  matters  of  theory,  of  judgment,  but  our 
suggestion  now  is  that  the  judgment  that  something  is  real 
or  unreal,  depends  on  the  thing's  character,  and  hence  can- 
not be  discussed  in  abstraction  from  the  judgment  that  the 
thing  is  really  so-and-so.  The  two  senses  of  "  reality  ",  in 
short,  though  they  may  be  distinguished,  are  too  closely 
connected  to  be  profitably  separated. 

But  before  we  can  follow  up  this  suggestion  and  present 
a  more  detailed  defence  of  it,  it  will  repay  us  to  learn  what 
we  can  from  a  consideration  of  two  recent  discussions  of  the 
nature  and  status  of  "  unreal  "  objects — discussions  which 
deserve  the  attention  of  'students  of  philosophy  no  less  be- 
cause of  the  eminence  of  the  debaters  than  because  of  their 
striking  divergence  from  each  other  in  spite  of  a  general 
affinity  in  their  philosophical  positions.  We  refer  to  the 

1  This  is  the  reason  why  dreams  can  be  reported  in  the  language 
of  the  "  real  "  world. 

2  Cf.  the  proverbial  pinching  oneself  to  make  sure  one  is  awake. 


86  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

Gegenstandstheorie  of  Meinong  and  his  school,  on  the  one 
side,  and  to  Bertrand  Russell's  criticism  of  it,  on  the 
other.1 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  method  of  Gegenstandstheorie 
to  insist  with  equal  emphasis  both  on  the  difference  between 
"  mental  "  acts  of  apprehension  and  "  non-mental  "  objects, 
and  also  on  their  invariable  correlation,  in  that  every  act  of 
apprehension  has  an  object  and  thus  affords  a  glimpse  into 
the  realm  where  Gegenstdnde  of  all  sorts  have  "  being  ". 
In  fact,  we  are  invited  to  think  of  the  universe  as  a  realm  of 
"  being  "  in  the  widest,  and  therefore  also  emptiest,  sense 
of  the  word.  Within  it,  we  are  to  distinguish  kinds  or  modes 
of  being,  such  as  "  existence  "  and  "  subsistence  ".  Or, 
using  "  subsistence  "  as  a  synonym  for  "  being  "  in  general, 
we  shall  distinguish  existent  from  non-existent,  real  from 
unreal,  being,  as  in  the  following  sketch  of  the  universe  by 
a  neo-realist  writer  who  declares  it  to  be  composed  of  "  all 
things  physical,  mental,  logical,  propositions  and  terms,  ex- 
istent and  non-existent,  false  and  true,  good  and  evil,  real 
and  unreal."2  The  unicorns,  the  mermaids,  the  golden 
mountains  of  fairy-tale,  the  spirits  and  forces  and  magical 
influences  of  things  on  one  another  of  primitive  supersti- 
tion, the  objects  and  events  of  nightmares,  will  "have 
being  "  or  "  subsist "  in  such  a  universe  as  truly  as  the 
things  of  the  "  real "  world  of  common-sense  and  natural 
science.  There  simply  will  be  things  which  are  "  real " 
and  other  things  which  are  "  unreal  ",  and  if  we  are  realists 
we  shall  add  that  neither  sort  owes  its  being  in  any  way 
to  being  perceived,  conceived,  or  in  some  other  manner  ap- 
prehended by  a  mind.  The  result  may  strike  those  who 

1  See  especially  A.  Meinong's  Untersuchungen  zur  Gegenstandstheorie 
und   Phychologie,   and    for    the   most    recent    statement    of    Russell's 
position,  his  Introduction  to  Mathematical  Philosophy,  esp.  chs.  xv,  xvi. 

2  E.  B.  Holt,  The  Place  of  Illusory  Experience  in  a  Realistic  World, 
in  The  New  Realism,  p.  372. 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  87 

have  not  familiarised  themselves  with  such  a  view  as  de- 
cidedly queer,  but  it  is,  at  any  rate,  the  outcome  of  a 
straightforward  application  of  the  principle  that  whatever 
any  mind  is  in  any  way  conscious  of,  or  whatever  it  can 
think  of,  or  talk  about,  must  at  any  rate  be. 

But,  perhaps,  as  Russell  suggests,  the  grammatical  struc- 
ture of  language  here  induces  metaphysical  illusions,  which 
it  is  the  business  of  logical  analysis  to  dispel.  Language 
consists  of  symbols,  and  it  is  the  function  of  symbols  to 
have  meanings.  The  danger  is  that  we  may  attribute  mean- 
ing to  groups  of  symbols  which,  by  themselves,  have  no 
meaning,  though  when  joined  with  other  words  in  proposi- 
tions they  help  to  express  the  total  meaning  of  the  proposi- 
tion as  a  whole.  The  propositions  of  a  fairy-tale  about 
fairies  and  golden  mountains,  and  so  forth,  are  capable  of 
being  understood,  and  thus  have  an  intelligible  meaning. 
The  illusion  is  that  this  meaning  depends  on  there  being, 
in  a  "  world  of  imagination  ",  fairies  and  golden  mountains, 
just  as  in  the  "  real  world  "  there  are  men  and  women  and 
mountains  of  chalk  or  granite.  The  problem  is  to  find  an 
interpretation  of  propositions  apparently  mentioning,  and 
referring  to,  unreal  objects,  which  shall  save  for  them,  as 
wholes,  the  intelligible  meaning  they  clearly  have,  without 
saddling  us  with  the  task  of  finding  a  place  in  the  world 
for  things  which  have  no  place  there.  For  to  the  question, 
Do  fairies  exist?  we  shall  reply,  There  are  no  such  things, 
only  to  be  met  by  the  retort,  How  then  can  you  talk  or 
think  of  them?  The  familiar  device  of  distinguishing  "  uni- 
verses of  discourse  " — a  real  world,  a  world  of  fairy-tale, 
a  world  of  literary  fiction,  etc. — does  not  solve  the  problem, 
but  only  evades  it.  No  doubt,  such  sorting  out  into  worlds 
prevents  direct  contradiction.  It  permits  us  playfully  to 
fancy  that  there  are  hobgoblins  round  the  corner  of  the 
door  without  being  unduly  disappointed  if,  on  looking,  we 


88  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

find  nothing  there.  But,  after  all,  we  cannot  forget  that 
these  make-believe  objects  and  worlds  depend  on  the  way 
in  which  real  minds,  real  human  beings,  use  the  symbols, 
linguistic  and  otherwise,  which  they  have  fashioned.  By 
this  link,  as  meanings  conditioned  by  symbols  employed 
by  men  of  flesh  and  blood,  unreal  objects  are  tied  to  the 
real  world.  To  ignore  this  is  to  be  lacking  in  that  "  sense 
of  reality  "  which,  as  Russell  insists,  "  is  vital  in  Logic." 
"  Logic,  I  should  maintain,  must  no  more  admit  a  unicorn 
than  zoology  can;  for  logic  is  concerned  with  the  real  world 
just  as  truly  as  zoology,  though  with  its  more  abstract  and 
general  features.  To  say  that  unicorns  have  an  existence 
in  heraldry,  or  in  literature,  or  in  imagination,  is  a  most 
pitiful  and  paltry  evasion.  What  exists  in  heraldry  is  not 
an  animal,  made  of  flesh  and  blood,  moving  and  breathing 
of  its  own  initiative.  What  exists  is  a  picture,  or  a  descrip- 
tion in  words.  Similarly,  to  maintain  that  Hamlet,  for  ex- 
ample, exists  in  his  own  world,  namely,  in  the  world  of 
Shakespeare's  imagination,  just  as  truly  as  (say)  Napoleon 
existed  in  the  ordinary  world,  is  to  say  something  deliber- 
ately confusing,  or  else  confused  to  a  degree  which  is 
scarcely  credible.  There  is  only  one  world,  the  "  real " 
world:  Shakespeare's  imagination  is  part  of  it,  and  the 
thoughts  that  he  had  in  writing  Hamlet  are  real.  So  are 
the  thoughts  that  we  have  in  reading  the  play.  But  it  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  fiction  that  only  the  thoughts,  feel- 
ings, etc.,  in  Shakespeare  and  his  readers  are  real,  and  that 
there  is  not,  in  addition  to  them,  an  objective  Hamlet. 
When  you  have  taken  account  of  all  the  feelings  roused  by 
Napoleon  in  writers  and  readers  of  history,  you  have  not 
touched  the  actual  man;  but  in  the  case  of  Hamlet  you  have 
come  to  the  end  of  him.  If  no  one  thought  about  Hamlet, 
there  would  be  nothing  left  of  him;  if  no  one  had  thought 
about  Napoleon,  he  would  have  soon  seen  to  it  that  some 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  89 

one  did." *  This,  we  shall  agree,  is  common  sense,  and 
when  common  sense  can  quote  the  high  authority  of  mathe- 
matical logic,  it  is  time  for  philosophers  to  sit  up  and  take 
notice. 

What,  then,  is  Russell's  solution  of  the  problem? 
Stripped  of  his  technical  language  about  "  propositional 
functions  ",  "  descriptions  ",  and  so  forth,  it  comes  to  this, 
that  the  meaning  of  propositions  about  fairies  depends  on 
the  concept  fairy,  but  not  on  the  existence  of  "  a  fairy  " 
or  "  fairies  "  somewhere  in  the  real  world  which  is  the  only 
world.  In  other  words,  though  we  can  talk  of  fairies  and 
make  significant  assertions  about  them,  we  never  meet  in 
experience  with  a  situation  in  which  we  can  say,  "  This] 
is  a  fairy ",  or  "  there  are  fairies ",  where  "  this "  and 
"  there  "  are  the  linguistic  equivalents  of  pointing  at  actual 
sense-data  or  particulars.  If  we  ever  perceived  something 
of  which  we  could  truly  say,  "  This  is  a  fairy  ",  then  at 
least  one  fairy  would  exist.  But,  for  lack  of  such  cases, 
we  must  say  of  fairies,  "  There  are  no  such  creatures  ",  or 
"  Fairies  are  unreal ",  the  meaning  being  that  the  concept 
"  fairy  "  is  inapplicable  in  the  real  world,  which,  at  the  very 
least,  is  the  world  of  actual  sense-data.  In  Russell's  lan- 
guage, "  fairies  are  unreal  "  means  that  the  "  description  ", 
fairy,  describes  nothing,  that  the  function  x  is  a  fairy,  is 
always  false. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  technical  refinement  in  Russell's 
statement  of  his  view  into  which  it  is  not  necessary  for  our 
purposes  to  follow  him.  But  if  the  above  correctly  repre- 
sents the  substance  of  his  theory,  we  may  heartily  agree 
to  it,  so  far  as  it  goes.  It  is,  however,  easy  to  see  that  there 
are  a  great  many  questions  suggested  by  such  a  theory, 
to  which  Russell  neither  refers  nor  replies.  There  is,  e.g., 
the  question,  how  we  get  these  concepts,  or  descriptions,  of 

1  Introduction  to  Mathematical  Philosophy,  p.   169. 


9o  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IV 

unreal  things — how  we  know  what  it  would  be  to  be  a  fairy 
—seeing  that  there  are  no  fairies  to  give  us  a  clue.  The 
interest  of  such  a  question  lies  in  its  suggestion  of  the 
parallel  question,  how  we  get  the  concepts,  or  descriptions, 
which  do  apply  in  the  real  world,  and  how  we  determine 
when  we  have  got  a  concept  in  its  "  true  "  or  "  real  "  form. 
To  the  technicalities  of  formal  analysis  in  which  Russell  is 
interested  throughout  his  argument,  these  "  epistemologi- 
cal  "  questions  are  perhaps  irrelevant.  But  when  we  are  in- 
terested in  the  concrete  problem  of  the  reality  of  the  world 
of  sense,  these  questions  inevitably  come  to  the  front. 

At  any  rate,  there  is  one  thing  which  we  may  well  learn 
from  Russell,  and  hold  fast  against  Meinong.  Apparent 
classifications  of  objects  into  "  real  "  and  "  unreal  ",  "  ex- 
istent "  and  "  non-existent  ",  are  not  really  classifications  of 
particular  objects  at  all,  but  of  concepts,  or  descriptions, 
according  as  experience  presents,  or  does  not  present,  cases 
for  their  application.  And,  further,  "  being  real "  and 
"  being  unreal "  are  themselves  concepts,  or  descriptions, 
predicable  of  other  concepts  according  as  these  are,  or  are 
not,  to  be  found  realised  in  sensible  particulars.  The  same 
remark  applies  to  "  existent "  and  "  non-existent  ".  It  is 
'only  concerning  concepts  that  we  can  ask,  "  Does  such  a 
thing  exist?  "  meaning  whether  in  the  world  of  sense  some 
datum,  or  group  of  data,  can  be  found  of  which  we  can  say, 
"  This  is  it ",  or  "  This  is  one  of  that  sort ".  It  will  be 
noted  that  this  is  but  a  more  elaborate  statement  of  the 
position  from  which  we  started  out  above,  viz.,  that  a  ques- 
tion of  reality,  once  we  pass  beyond  bare,  uninterpreted 
data,  is  always  a  question  of  the  truth  of  a  theory,  i.e.,  in 
the  language  of  the  present  argument,  of  the  applicability 
of  a  concept,  or  description. 

But  are  we  not,  it  may  be  asked,  making  a  predicate,  or 
attribute,  of  "  existence  "?  Are  we  not  forgetting,  or  run- 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  91 

ning  counter  to,  the  well-known  argument  by  which  Hume 
and  Kant  upset  the  ontological  proof?  By  no  means — on 
the  contrary,  we  may  claim  that  ours  is  but  a  modern  ver- 
sion of  their  position.  For  what  they  challenged  when  they 
argued  that  "  existence  "  is  not  an  attribute  analytically 
contained  in  the  definition  of  a  concept,  was  the  view  that 
an  a  priori  concept  can  guarantee  its  own  applicability, 
i.e.,  that  it  can  guarantee  the  occurrence  in  experience  of 
a  "  this  ",  of  which  it  shall  be  true  to  say,  "  This  is  it " 
("it"  in  the  ontological  argument  being  God).1  When 
Kant  declares  that  there  is  no  difference  in  attributes,  i.e., 
in  description,  between  "  real  "  and  "  imaginary  "  dollars, 
and  that  the  difference  lies  in  that  the  former  are  empiri- 
cally given,  the  latter  not,  he  is  clearly  affirming,  in  effect, 
the  position  here  laid  down. 

What  we  have  said  may  suffice  for  the  abstractly  formal 
side  of  the  problem  of  reality.  But  the  situation,  as  we 
have  already  indicated  above  in  anticipation,  is  a  great  deal 
more  complicated  when  we  are  dealing  with  concrete  prob- 
lems of  reality  in  respect  of  the  actual  world  of  sense. 
It  will  help  to  clear  up  these  complications  to  some  extent, 
if  we  distinguish  at  least  three  typically  different  ways  in 
which  problems  of  "  reality  ",  i.e.,  of  the  truth  of  judgments 
affirming  a  concept  (or  "  universal ")  of  the  this-here-now, 
may  arise. 

(i)  The  first  of  these  three  situations  arises  from  the 
fact  that  what  is  given  always  has  a  definite  character  of 
its  own — is  a  "  this-such  " 2 — but  that  the  extent  and  de- 

1  Of  course,  it  is  quite  another  matter  to  begin  at  the  empirical  end 
by  asking  whether  the  world  as  a  whole,  or  anything  in  the  world, 
possesses  the  special  character  which,  once  recognised,  we  call  "  divine  ". 
Here  we  begin  with  what  is  given,  and  work,  through  deepening  and 
enlarging  experience  and  interpretation  to  its  true  character.     We  do 
not  begin  with  a  definition  and  seek  to  apply  it.     See  ch.  x. 

2  We  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  this  point  in  the  following 
essay  (ch.  v). 


92  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

gree  to  which  this  character  is  revealed  or  known,  depends 
both  on  the  range  of  experiences  which  furnish  materials  for 
synthesis,  and  on  the  type  of  unity  thus  discerned.  In  all 
argument,  whether  in  ordinary  intercourse,  in  science,  or  in 
philosophy,  if  the  disputants  are  not  simply  "  at  cross-pur- 
poses ",  the  "  this  ",  or,  more  generally,  the  point  of  refer- 
ence, is  agreed  on  and  recognised  to  be  the  same,  but  the 
rival  theories,  or  descriptions,  of  its  character  conflict.  The 
familiar  story  of  the  theological  disputant  exclaiming  to  his 
opponent:  "  Your  God  is  my  Devil  ",  is  an  extreme  instance 
of  such  conflict.  Everyday  instances  may  be  found  in  any 
argument  between  men  disputing  the  accuracy  of  one  an- 
other's memory  of  the  same  event,  or  whether  an  object  seen 
at  a  distance  is  a  human  being  or  a  tree-trunk.  Other  ex- 
amples may  be  found  whenever  we  distinguish  between 
denying  a  "  fact  "  and  denying  a  "  theory  about  the  fact  ", 
as  when  a  behaviourist,  like  E.  B.  Holt,  warns  his  fellow- 
behaviourists  against  repeating  the  "  materialist's  error,  of 
denying  the  facts,  as  well  as  the  theory,  of  consciousness."  1 
That  there  are  things  in  the  world,  things  met  with  in  expe- 
rience, to  which  the  term  "  consciousness  "  applies,  is  here 
conceded  as  fact.  But  what  is  the  nature  of  these  conscious- 
nesses, that  is  in  dispute,  the  extremes  of  theory  ranging 
from  immaterial,  immortal  soul-substance  to  stream  of  ideas 
and  integration  of  reflex-responses  to  the  environment.  All 
these  are  questions  of  something  being  really  so  or  really 
thus,  with  two,  or  more,  positive  alternatives  of  theory  op- 
posing each  other.  And  most  commonly  these  questions 
arise  at  a  level  where,  not  only  the  bare  data,  but  up  to  a 
point  the  interpretation  is  agreed  upon.  For,  clearly,  there 
are  levels,  or  strata,  of  interpretation.  At  the  level  of  des- 
cription of  the  given  which  suffices  for  the  correct  identifica- 


1  The  Freudian  Wish,  Supplementary  Essay  on  Response  and  Cog- 
nition, p.  207. 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  93 

tion  of  the  familiar  objects  and  happenings  of  daily  life, 
savage  and  civilised  man  commonly  agree.  When  interpre- 
tation is  pushed  further,  e.g.,  into  causes,  they  begin  to  dis- 
agree, the  savage  taking  the  turn  into  magic  and  animism, 
the  civilised  man  into  science.  Potatoes,  water,  and  cook- 
ing they  recognise  alike,  but  when,  at  a  high  altitude,  boiling 
water  fails  to  cook  potatoes,  the  unscientific  mind  blames 
the  devil  in  the  cursed  pot,  the  scientific  mind  traces  the 
correlation  of  boiling  point  and  atmospheric  pressure.1  Mr. 
T.  P.  Nunn  proposes  2  to  distinguish  "  primary  syntheses  " 
(or  interpretations)  of  sensational  data  on  which  all  men 
agree,  from  "  secondary  syntheses  "  which  may  be  either 
"  animistic  "  beliefs  or  "  scientific  "  hypotheses.  But  it 
would  be  better  to  distinguish  not  merely  two,  but  many, 
levels,  or  strata,  of  interpretation,  some  mutually  incom- 
patible, others  rather  complementary  or  built  up  on  one 
another  in  some  such  hierarchical  order  as  we  have  in  the 
order  of  the  sciences,  from  physics  and  chemistry  through 
biology  to  psychology.  Here,  as  before,  the  aim  is  to  get 
the  best  total  interpretation,  where  "  best "  means  both 
the  most  comprehensive  or  inclusive,  and  the  most  system- 
atic and  organising.  And  if  we  are  to  be  honestly  system- 
atic, there  must  be  no  slurring  over  of  empirically  recog- 
nisable differences,  in  order  to  be  able  to  say  that  "  noth- 
ing but "  some  abstract  generality  is  involved.  Thus,  e.g., 
the  distinction  between  the  living  and  the  non-living  is  one 
of  the  corner-stones  of  the  order  we  recognise  in  the  world 
and  on  which  we  found  our  conduct,  yet  the  theory  of  me- 
chanism confronts  that  of  vitalism,  and  panpsychism  claims 
to  be  able  to  replace  both.  Indeed,  all  interpretations  in 
terms  of  "  life  "  and  "  mind  "  raise,  for  the  philosopher,  the 

1  The  instance  comes  from  Darwin's  The  Voyage  of  the  Beagle.    I 
owe  it  to  Mr.  T.  P.  Nunn's  The  Aims  of  Scientific  Method,  ch.  ii,  p  46 

2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  47. 


94  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IV 

choice  between  being  "  positivistic "  (or  "  phenomenal- 
istic"),  i.e.,  construing  every  fact  as  a  complex  of  sense- 
data,  and  being  "  metaphysical ".  And  there  are,  again, 
two  ways  of  being  metaphysical — one,  which  consists  in 
positing  non-perceptible  entities  and  forces,  from  "  atoms  " 
to  "  entelechies  "  and  "  souls  ";  the  other,  which  claims 
that  characters  such  as  life  and  mind  are  empirically  recog- 
nisable where  they  occur,  though  not  perceptible  in  the 
sense  of  consisting  merely  of  patterns  of  sense-data  with 
their  relations  of  co-existence  and  succession. 

(ii)  The  examples  on  which  we  found  Russell  chiefly 
relying — creatures  of  fairy-tale,  characters  in  literature,  and 
all  figments  of  the  imagination  generally — raise  the  "  real- 
ity "  problem  in  a  very  different  form.  Much  depends  here 
on  how  explicit  the  distinction  between  fact  and  fiction  is 
in  a  person's  thought.  To  a  child,  believing  in  the  existence 
of  the  grotesque  creatures  of  nursery-tales,  afraid  of  the 
dark  because  of  unseen  presences  in  it,  these  creatures  are 
real  as  objects  of  possible  perception.1  But  when  a  novelist 
assures  us  that  the  characters  of  his  tale  "  have  no  existence 
outside  the  pages  of  his  book  ",  i.e.,  that  he  has  not  de- 
scribed the  doings  of  actual  persons  of  his  acquaintance,  we 
understand  clearly  that  we  must  not  expect  to  meet  his 
characters  in  the  street,  or  have  any  of  the  relations  to 
them,  of  buying  or  selling,  marrying  or  giving  in  marriage, 
which  we  have  to  "  real "  people.  We  can  see,  on  reflec- 
tion, that  we  are  dealing  with  a  phenomenon  of  language, 

1 1  may,  perhaps,  illustrate  this  by  an  experience  of  my  boyhood. 
I  believed  so  firmly  in  the  reality  of  the  Christ-child  as  the  giver 
of  good  things  at  Christmas  that  one  of  my  first  uses  of  the  laboriously 
acquired  art  of  writing  was  to  indite  a  letter  to  the  Christ-child,  setting 
forth  my  wishes.  The  letter  was  duly  placed  outside  the  window 
for  the  convenience  of  the  angelic  mail,  and,  of  course,  removed 
by  a  grown-up  relative.  But  I,  presently  finding  it  gone,  was  firmly 
convinced  that  I  had  just  caught  the  flash  of  the  departing  angel's 
wings  in  the  sky.  I  had  there  my  data  on  which  the  reality  of  the 
whole  belief  hung. 


Ch.IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  95 

or,  generally,  of  symbolism.  For,  though  the  meanings  of 
our  symbols  are,  in  the  first  instance,  found  realised,  or,  at 
least,  considered  as  realisable,  in  the  "  real "  world,  they 
can,  by  supposition  or  make-believe,  be  detached,  and  as 
a  result,  through  the  whole  range  from  idle  fancy  to  highest 
literary  art,  we  can  indulge  in  a  real  occupation  with  mean- 
ings unrealised  and  unrealisable — with  the  "  unreal  things  " 
of  common  parlance. 

(iii)  But  a  third  group  of  reality-problems  is  not  so 
simply  disposed  of.  The  problems  of  this  group  have  this 
in  common,  as  distinct  from  those  of  the  preceding  group, 
that  they  spring  from  actual  data,  the  interpretation  of 
which  is  wellnigh  impossible  within  the  framework  of  theory 
which  we  call  the  "  real  "  world  of  practice  and  science,  and 
which  suggest  interpretations  of  their  own,  more  or  less 
flagrantly  in  conflict  with  that  framework.  In  two  direc- 
tions we  find  especially  striking  instances  of  such  vagabond 
phenomena,  roaming  on  the  fringes  of  our  orderly  universe, 
and  not  admitted  into  it,  like  the  arts,  as  licensed  jesters  or 
tragedians.  One  of  these  groups  of  instances  is  to  be  found 
in  all  the  phenomena  under  investigation  by  Societies  of 
Psychical  Research.  Any  one  who  knows  these  phenomena 
only  by  description,  may  well  feel,  when  perusing  reports 
of  apparitions  of  ghosts,  materialisations,  levitations,  com- 
munications from  departed  spirits  through  the  trance-utter- 
ances of  mediums,  that  he  might  be  more  convinced  if  he, 
personally,  were  to  have  such  experiences — to  see  what  he 
could  not  but  explain  as  a  ghost,  to  witness  heavy  objects 
moving  through  the  air  without  discoverable  physical  cause, 
to  receive  communications  of  unmistakable  authenticity 
from  departed  friends.  But  this  is  the  smaller  difficulty. 
Having  the  experiences,  he  would,  indeed,  have  the  data,  the 
"  facts  ",  and  so  far  he  would  be  in  a  better  position  to 
judge.  But  the  mere  seeing  and  hearing  would  not,  even 


96  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IV 

then,  settle  for  him  the  question  of  the  truth  of  rival  inter- 
pretations, from  telepathy  and  telaesthesia  to  supernormal 
action  of  "  spirits  ",  which  are  so  utterly  without  analogue 
among  the  interpretations  to  which  especially  the  natural 
sciences  have  accustomed  him.  And  when  he  finds  reput- 
able witnesses  recording  themselves  as  convinced,  from  their 
personal  observations,  of  the  truth  of  such  tales  as  that  men 
can  take  on  at  will  the  shape  of  wild  beasts * — tales  which 
he  had  been  wont  to  class  among  the  most  grotesque  super- 
stitions of  savages — Hamlet's  reminder  that  "  there  are  more 
things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio,  than  are  dreamt  of  in 
your  philosophy,"  may  seem  the  only  possible  comment. 
To  set  these  phenomena  aside  as  abnormal  does  not  help. 
The  field  of  psychical  research  is  full  of  data,  as  multi- 
tudinous as  they  are  varied,  which  the  best  will  to  disbe- 
lieve cannot  either  fit  into  the  pattern  of  orthodox  physical 
or  psychological  science,  or  dispose  of  by  wholesale  label- 
lings  as  fraud,  coincidence,  credulity.  What  is  real  here, 
what  unreal,  i.e.,  what  theory  will  turn  out  to  be  true,  what 
others  false,  who  will  confidently  presume  to  tell?  Of  one 
thing  only  can  we  be  reasonably  sure:  reality  here,  as  else- 
where, will  in  the  end  prove  to  be  that  theory  which  sup- 
plies the  most  comprehensive,  as  well  as  systematic,  inter- 
pretation of  all  the  relevant  data. 

And  the  other  group  of  difficult  instances  is  formed  by 
dreams,  which  are  difficult  even  when  we  wholly  omit  from 
consideration  prophetic  and  veridical  dreams  as  being,  once 
more,  abnormal  and  rare.  In  spite  of  all  the  illuminating 
study  of  dreams  which  in  recent  years  we  have  had  from 
psychologists,  like  Freud,  or  from  philosophers,  like  Berg- 

*  See  Richard  Bagot's  article  on  The  Hyenas  of  Pirra  in  the  Corn- 
hill  Magazine,  Oct.  1918.  The  article  is  based  on  the  independent 
testimony  of  two  British  officers  in  Nigeria.  See  also  the  Journal 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  (London),  vol.  xix.  no.  157 
(July  1919). 


Ch.  IV]  THE  WORLD  OF  SENSE  97 

son,  the  problems  which  dreams  present  for  a  theory  of 
reality  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  exhausted.    Dreams 
are  composed  of  sense-data,1  which  are  all  through  the  dream 
interpreted  and  identified,  be  it  as  objects  we  are  familiar 
with  in  waking  experience  (e.g.,  in  dreaming  of  a  friend),  be 
it  as  objects  like  those  we  are  familiar  with  (houses,  trees, 
etc.}.    The  verisimilitude  of  dreams  is  sometimes  so  com- 
plete that  there  is  nothing  to  exclude  the  experience  from 
the  real  world  except  the  fact  that  we  awake  from  it  in  bed. 
Still,  this  is  enough  of  discontinuity,  at  any  rate  for  practical 
purposes,  to  justify  our  setting  dream-objects  and  events 
down  as  "  unreal ",  a  conclusion  reinforced  by  the  many 
dreams  in  which  the  sequence  of  events  and  the  behaviour 
of  objects  are  chaotic  as  measured  by  the  order  of  the  day- 
light world.     "  Unreal  "  here  means  that  the  theory — for 
we  know,  by  now,  that  the  order  of  the  daylight  world 
is  a  theory — the  application  of  which  to  the  sense-data  to 
which  it  does  apply,  yields  the  "  real  world  ",  does  not  apply 
to  the  data  within  the  dream.     But  with  dreams  we  are 
fortunate  enough  to  be  able  to  take  a  further  step.    Granted 
that  what  we  dream  is  unreal,  i.e.,  that  taken  bona  fide  for 
what  it  ostensibly  is,  it  does  not  fit  into  the  pattern  of  the 
real  world,  and  has  none  of  the  consequences  and  implica- 
tions there  which  as  a  genuine  member  of  the  pattern  it 
should  have,  yet  at  the  same  time  the  dreamings,  as  events 
in  a  real  dreamer's  life,  have  a  place  and  date  in  the  tem- 
poral order.    And  if,  in  addition,  we  can  interpret  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  dreams,  as  Freud  has  taught  us  to  do,  as  the 
symbolic  disguise  of  the  satisfaction  of  wishes  repressed  in 

1  It  would  take  too  long  to  defend  this  statement,  which  might  easily 
be  supported  from  the  literature,  against  objections.  Suffice  to  say 
that  a  vivid  dream  is  indistinguishable  for  the  dreamer  from  waking- 
experience  along  the  lines  of  images  versus  sense-data ;  that  the  in- 
ference to  dreams  being  composed  of  images,  in  spite  of  their  vivid- 
ness, is  open  to  criticism;  and  that  images,  in  any  case  are  revivals 
of  sense-data. 


98  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IV 

real  life,  we  have  taken  yet  a  further  step  towards  integrat- 
ing these  excursions  into  the  unreal  with  the  tissue  of  the 
real  world. 

At  any  rate,  throughout  this  discussion,  we  have  found 
no  reason  to  abandon  the  general,  if  so  far  purely  formal, 
principle  that  "  reality  ",  or  "  the  real  world  ",  is  the  most 
comprehensive  and  coherent  system  of  interpretations  which 
alike  is  based  upon,  and  also  continually  confirmed  by,  the 
manifold  sense-data  which  come  and  go  from  moment  to 
moment.  At  any  point  the  true  interpretation  of  these  data 
is  that  which  (a)  either  implies,  or  is  at  least  compatible 
with,  the  largest  number  of  other  interpretations  accepted 
as  true;  and  (b)  which  is  open  in  principle,  if  not  always 
in  practice,  to  verification  by  fresh  evidence  in  the  form  of 
further  sense-data  (including  the  testimony  of  others). 


CHAPTER  V 

"  SAVING   THE   APPEARANCES  "   IN   THE   PHYSICAL    WORLD 

THROUGHOUT  the  argument  of  this  essay  we  are  to  keep 
steadily  within  the  context  of  perceptions,  the  objects  of 
which  are  regarded,  bona  fide,  as  physical  or  material 
things.  Hallucinations,  dreams,  imaginations  are  to  be 
excluded.  We  are  to  deal  with  such  familiar  experiences  as 
looking  around  a  room  and  touching  this  thing  or  that; 
looking  out  of  the  window,  too,  at  things  which,  like  clouds, 
we  cannot  touch;  listening  to  the  multifarious  noises  of 
traffic  in  the  street;  recognising,  throughout,  each  thing  for 
what  it  is,  and  taking  it  for  granted  that  each  is  real,  and 
is  really,  i.e.,  truly,  what  we  perceive  it  to  be.  Memories, 
too,  we  shall  admit  into  our  argument,  provided  again  they 
are  memories  of  perceptions  of  physical  things,  not  of 
dreams  or  other  experiences  of  what  is  not  physically  real. 
For  memories  help  to  generalise  the  situations  which  we 
are  to  examine.  But  it  is  best  to  steady  our  argument  by 
conducting  it  in  a  context  of  actual  perception  of  physical 
things.  To  give  himself  actual  examples  of  the  kind  of  ex- 
perience he  is  about  to  analyse,  is  the  philosopher's  only 
equivalent  to  the  scientist's  experiment. 

The  setting  for  our  argument  is  provided  by  the  common- 
sense  belief  that  what,  at  any  given  moment,  we  perceive 
is  a  bit  of  a  world  of  individual  "  things  ",  of  which  the 
colours  we  see,  the  sounds  we  hear,  the  solidity  we  feel  by 
touch,  etc.,  are  "  qualities  ".  Throughout  the  first  stage  of 
the  argument  we  shall  take  it  for  granted  that  "  seeing  is 
believing  ",  or,  in  other  words,  that  every  act  of  perception 
is  also  an  act  of  judgment.  We  shall  assume  that  to  per- 

99 


ioo  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  V 

ceive  a  thing — to  identify,  recognise,  know  it  for  what  it  is 
— no  less  than  to  perceive  its  qualities,  or  its  relations,  is 
to  judge  that  what  we  perceive  is  really  such-and-such  a 
thing,  with  such-and-such  qualities  and  relations.  The  com- 
monest class  of  such  judgments  of  perception  consists  of 
those  in  which  some  sense-datum  is  affirmed,  or  interpreted, 
to  be  the  quality  of  a  thing.  We  are  first,  then,  to  examine 
the  various  problems  which  centre  around  the  status  of 
sense-data l  in  the  perception  of  physical  things.  An  amaz- 
ing amount  of  philosophical  ingenuity  has  been  expended 
upon  efforts  to  show  that  the  things  which  we  perceive  are 
not  really  what  we  perceive  them  to  be.  The  point  of  these 
arguments  is  not  merely  that  perception  does  not  give  us 
the  whole  truth  about  things,  but  that  things  must  be  judged 
to  be  definitely  other  than,  or  different  from,  what  to  our 
senses  they  "  appear  "  to  be.  We  must  face,  at  least  in  its 
main  forms,  this  challenge  to  our  naive  confidence  that 
through  sense-data  we  become  acquainted  with  the  nature  of 
physical  things.  If  sense-data  are  not  what  we  take  them 
to  be,  viz.,  qualities  of  physical  things,  then  this  confidence 
is  unjustified,  and  all  our  ordinary  judgments  of  perception 
are,  in  fact,  false. 

This  first  group  of  problems  will  lead  us  on  to  a  second 
group,  concerned,  in  part,  with  the  distinction — insisted 
upon  as  fundamental  by  eminent  present-day  thinkers — be- 
tween perception  and  judgment;  and,  in  part,  with  a  deeper 
analysis  of  what  is  involved  in  the  perception  of  a  "  thing  ". 

1  The  term  "  sense-data "  is  used  throughout  as  being  theoretically 
the  most  neutral  and  non-committal.  The  term  "  sensations  ",  by  cur- 
rent usage,  commits  us  at  once  to  the  theory  that  colours,  sounds, 
etc.,  are  "  mental "  states,  and  therefore  cannot  be  qualities  of  physical 
things  or  belong  in  any  way  to  the  texture  of  the  external  world.  Its 
meaning,  in  short,  belongs  traditionally  to  the  context  of  the  theory 
which  sorts  out  the  contents  of  the  universe  into  "  physical "  and 
"  psychical "  as  mutually  exclusive  classes.  The  present  discussion 
neither  takes  this  theory  for  granted,  nor  supports  it.  To  introduce 
it  here  would  be  indefensible  irrelevance. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  ioi 

In  this  context,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  carry  a  step  fur- 
ther the  discussion  of  data  and  interpretation  upon  which 
we  had  entered  in  the  preceding  essay.  And  we  shall  also 
be  compelled  to  define  our  attitude  towards  two  tendencies 
in  the  contemporary  treatment  of  the  thing-problem  which 
we  may  call,  respectively,  the  phenomenalistic  and  the  meta- 
physical. The  former  begins,  historically,  with  Berkeley's 
analysis  of  a  thing  as  a  complex  of  "  ideas  of  sense  ";  is 
continued  by  Hume  and  by  Comte;  elaborated  in  J.  S. 
Mill's  theory  of  a  thing  as  a  "  permanent  possibility  of  sen- 
sations ";  and  it  counts  among  its  present-day  representa- 
tives a  physicist  like  Ernst  Mach,  a  mathematician  and 
biologist  like  Karl  Pearson,  a  logician  and  philosopher  like 
Bertrand  Russell.1  Indeed  it  may  be  said  to  have  attained 
its  highest  refinement  in  Russell's  account  of  a  thing  as  a 
"  logical  construct ",  a  class  of  sense-data  and  sensibilia. 
The  metaphysical  tendency,  by  contrast,  is  the  philosophical 
defender  of  that  scheme  of  common  thought  which  has 
shaped  our  language  into  substantives,  adjectives,  and  verbs, 
expressive  of  the  theory  that  ours  is  a  world  of  things, 
possessed  of  qualities,  and  active  in  their  relations  to  each 
other.  Formerly  this  type  of  philosophical  theory  used  the 
concepts  of  "  substance  "  and  "  attribute  ",  but  so  far  as 
substance  was  conceived  as  distinct  from  its  attributes,  and 
as  somehow  the  bearer  of  them,  it  has  long  given  way  before 
the  assaults  of  phenomenalistic  critics  who,  first  pressing  the 
distinction,  pushed  the  substance  into  the  position  of  an  un- 
known and  unknowable  x,  and  then  denied  its  very  existence 
as  an  otiose  fiction.  Berkeley's  denial  of  "  matter "  is 
typical  of  the  logic  of  this  situation.  But  substance  always 
meant  more  than  merely  something  which  has  qualities.  It 
meant  above  all  something  which  exists  in  its  own  right,  is 

1  See  Mack's  Analysis  of  Sensations,  Pearson's  Grammar  of  Science, 
Russell's  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World. 


102  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

therefore  independent  of  other  things,  self-contained  and 
self-existent — individual,  in  short,  in  the  most  pregnant 
sense  of  this  word.  Spinoza's  Per  substantiam  intelligo  id 
quod  in  se  est  et  per  se  concipitur  is  perhaps  the  most  fa- 
mous historical  link  between  a  tradition  almost  as  old  as 
philosophy  itself,  and  its  vigorous  modern  representatives. 
It  is  the  mark  of  the  modern  metaphysician,  as  distinct 
from  the  phenomenalist,  to  use  as  fundamental  the  categories 
of  individuality  and  self-existence.  But  there  are  two  ways 
of  doing  even  this.  One  way,  by  bold  speculative  guesses, 
takes  us  away  from  experience,  and  seeks  to  construe  in- 
dividuality everywhere  on  the  analogy  of  psychical  activity, 
attributing  some  degree  of  consciousness,  will,  or  soul,  to 
every  physical  thing.1  The  other  way,  which  will  be  our 
way,  is  to  save  things  as  individuals,  of  at  least  relative  self- 
existence,  equally  from  being  dissolved  into  classes  of  sen- 
sibilia,  and  from  having  their  unity  referred  to  the  posses- 
sion of  a  soul  of  which  we  have  no  empirical  evidence.  We 
shall  try  to  show  that  there  are  perceptible  clues  to  individ- 
uality which  the  current  analyses  of  the  perception  of  things 
overlook. 

Throughout  both  groups  of  problems,  we  shall  try  to 
"  save  the  appearances  ",  i.e.,  to  construct  a  theory  of  the 
physical  world  as  we  perceive  it  to  be,  which  shall  not  dis- 
card, or  reject,  sense-data,  and  still  less  set  up  an  "  un- 
knowable somewhat "  behind  appearances,  but  which  shall 
include  all  data  offered  by  experience  in  such  a  way  that 

1  There  is  no  need  to  review  in  detail  the  various  hypotheses,  from 
Leibniz  to  Lotze  and  modern  panpsychists  and  voluntarists  of  all 
sorts,  not  to  forget  Schopenhauer's  Will,  von  Hartmann's  Unconscious, 
Bergson's  elan  vital,  Clifford's  Mind-stuff,  recently  resuscitated  by 
Strong.  Perhaps  the  most  attractive  and  plausible  statement  of  this 
type  of  theory  in  recent  literature  is  to  be  found  in  Professor  Mary 
Whittpn  Calkins's  Presidential  Address  to  the  American  Philosophical 
Association,  published  under  the  title,  The  Personalistic  Conception  of 
Nature,  in  the  Philosophical  Review  for  March,  1919  (vol.  xxviii, 
no.  2). 


Ch.V]  "SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES7'  103 

each,  in  its  place  and  character,  may  be  retained,  and  that 
the  contradictions  and  incoherencies  which,  prima  facie,  be- 
set our  data  may  yield  to  the  discovery  of  order.  This  is 
in  keeping  with  our  ideal  of  philosophical  theory  as  striving 
to  find  a  place  and  use  for  all  that  is  given  in  experience,  by 
incorporation  in  a  self-consistent  system. 


"  When  we  see  a  tree  we  think  that  it  is  really  green  and 
really  waving  about  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  it  ap- 
pears to  be  "/  In  short,  when  we  perceive  we  judge  that 
what  we  perceive  is  really  so.  Clearly  the  truth  of  a  class  of 
judgments  is  here  at  issue,  viz.,  the  judgments  which  affirm 
that  colours,  sounds,  tastes,  smells,  touches  are  qualities  of 
physical  things.  We  can  distinguish  four  main  problems 
which  have  been  raised  about  judgments  of  this  sort,  four 
lines  of  argument  along  which  their  truth  has  been  either 
doubted  or  denied.  We  may  formulate  them  in  the  follow- 
ing four  questions: 

(i)  Are  sense-data  really  qualities  of  physical  things, 

1  C.  D.  Broad,  Perception,  Physics  and  Reality,  p.  1.  "As  it  appears 
to  be  "  is,  of  course,  only  a  synonym  for  "  as  it  is  seen  to  be  ",  though 
"  appears  ",  with  its  reminder  of  a  possible  difference  between  "  appear- 
ance "  and  "  reality ",  hints  also,  by  anticipation,  at  the  problem  of 
the  truth  of  what  we  think,  or  judge,  when  we  see  a  tree.  It  is  worth 
noting  that,  whilst  our  linguistic  resources  for  expressing  what  we 
perceive  are  very  varied  and  flexible,  they  gravitate  towards  the  judg- 
ment-form, "I  see  a  tree",  "I  see  this  (object)  to  be  a  tree",  "I 
see  that  this  is  a  tree ".  Here  the  initial  substantive  is  drawn  out 
into  what  is  unmistakeably  a  judgment.  If  we  express  what  we  per- 
ceive without  the  prefix  "  I  see ",  "  I  hear ",  the  remainder,  "  this 
is  a  tree  ",  even  if  shrunk  into  the  exclamation,  "  a  tree  ",  is  obviously 
a  judgment.  Moreover,  phrases  like  "  I  see "  are  frequently  mere 
synonyms  for  "there  is  .  .  ."  They  rarely,  in  current  speech  at  any 
rate,  demand  an  interpretation  placing  the  emphasis  on  the  ostensible 
grammatical  subject  "  I ".  They  are  not,  in  this  first  intention,  state- 
ments of  fact  about  me,  but  about  what  it  is  that  is  perceived  by  me. 
When  challenged  in  this,  their  first,  intention,  the  emphasis  may,  of 
course,  shift  to  the  seeing: — "but  I  see  it  is  a  tree" — as  the  evidence 
on  which  I  rely  in  my  belief.  Certainly,  intelligent  perception,  "  know- 
ing what  one  sees",  is  indistinguishable  from  judgment. 


104  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

i.e.,  are  physical  things  really  coloured,  tasting,  smelling, 
etc.,  things,  or  are  their  so-called  qualities  merely  impres- 
sions produced  in  the  minds  of  observers  of  appropriate 
psycho-physical  constitution? 

(2)  Granted  that  physical  things  really  have  these  sen- 
sible qualities,  what  is  the  "  real "  quality  of  a  thing,  as 
distinct  from  the  varying  appearances  of  that  quality? 

(3)  Do  things  possess  their  sensible  qualities  only  when, 
and  so  long  as,  they  are  being  perceived?     Or  are  their 
qualities  "  real "  in  the  special  sense  of  existing  when  not 
perceived  by  anybody? 

(4)  Are  sense-data  "  private "  to  each   observer,  and 
hence  unshareable,  incommunicable?    If  so,  can  two  persons 
be  said  to  perceive  the  same  thing,  or  even  merely  to  see 
the  same  colour  or  hear  the  same  sound? 

To  simplify  the  discussion,  let  us  restate  these  four 
questions  quite  briefly  in  terms  of  a  single  quality,  viz., 
colour: 

(1)  Is  a  physical  thing  which  we  see  really  coloured? 

(2)  If  so,  what  is  its  real  colour? 

(3)  Is  it  coloured  at  times  when  no  one  perceives  it? 

(4)  Has  it  all  the  colours  which  different  percipients  see 
in  it  from  different  points  of  view  and  at  the  same  time? 

(i)  The  grounds  on  which  it  is  denied  that  the  colours 
we  perceive  are  really  qualities  of  physical  objects  fall, 
broadly,  into  two  groups.  One  group  consists  of  arguments 
drawn  from  the  difficulty  of  determining  the  "  real  "  colour, 
or,  else,  from  the  alleged  "  privacy  "  of  colours.  They  thus 
fall  to  be  considered  under  (2)  and  (4).  The  other  group 
consists  of  the  familiar  distinction  between  primary  and 
secondary  qualities,  together  with  the  causal  theory  of  per- 
ception by  which  that  distinction  is  commonly  supported. 
The  psycho-physiology  of  perception,  which  is  but  the 


Ch.VJ  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES "  105 

causal  theory  drawn  out  into  a  detailed  account  of  the  sense- 
organs  and  the  nervous  system  as  a  mechanism  of  response 
to  stimuli,  lends  additional  weight;  and  so  apparently  does 
the  fact  that  the  fundamental  concepts  of  physics  define 
"  matter  "  in  terms  which  make  no  mention  of  secondary 
qualities.1  If  the  advocates  of  these  theories  always  re- 
membered them  in  making  their  judgments,  they  would  say, 
not  "  This  tree  is  green  ",  but  "  This  tree  produces  a  sensa- 
tion of  greenness  in  us."  Among  recent  writers,  Mr.  H.  A. 
Prichard,  with  his  usual  intellectual  honesty,  draws  prec- 
isely this  conclusion,  and,  denying  colour  to  be  a  quality 
of  bodies,  sets  it  down  that,  "  with  respect  to  colour,  things 
look  what  they  never  are,  or,  in  other  words,  are  wholly 
different  from  what  they  look  ".2 

There  is  no  need  to  review  the  prolonged  debate  on  this 
issue  in  all  its  twistings  and  turnings.  But  we  may  usefully 
dwell  on  certain  points  which  do  not  appear  to  have  met  with 
the  recognition  they  deserve. 

(a)  First,  it  is  worth  noticing  that  the  arguments  do  not 
attack  the  concept  of  quality  as  such,  for  physical  objects 
("  bodies  ")  continue  to  be  thought  of  as  characterised  by 
primary  qualities.  All  they  deny  is  that  colours  and  other 
secondaries  can  be  qualities,  whatever  "  being  a  quality  " 
may  mean.  So  when  Locke  denies  the  "  reality  "  of  second- 
aries, he  merely  means  that  they  are  not  qualities  of  bodies, 
but  ideas  in  our  minds.  In  short,  all  that  the  arguments 
do  is,  first,  to  substitute,  in  the  interpretation  of  sense-data, 
the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  for  the  relation  of  thing  and 

1  Locke's  defence  of  the  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
qualities    (Essay   on    the   Human    Understanding.   Book    II,   ch.   viii), 
which,  though   not  the  earliest   in   modern   philosophy,   exercised   the 
most  influence  on  subsequent  thought,  relies  on  a  most  heterogeneous 
assemblage  of  arguments.     See  Note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 

2  Kant's  Theory  of  Knowledge,  p.  87.     For  other  secondaries,   see 
pp.  85,  6.     Mr.  Prichard's  premises,  however,  are  drawn  mainly  from 
arguments  which,  for  us,  belong  to  questions  (2)  and  (3)  in  our  list. 


106  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.  V 

quality;  and,  secondly,  to  class  sense-data  as  intra-mental 
impressions  in  contrast  to  extra-mental  bodies. 

(b)  Now  when  we  consider  the  bearing  of  these  theses 
on  the  practice  and  theory  of  the  physical  sciences,  we  find 
that  they  amount  to  a  subtle  distortion  of  the  intellectual 
perspective.  In  the  first  place,  every  scientist,  as  observer 
•  and  experimenter,  identifies  and  discriminates  the  objects 
he  uses  and  investigates,  by  their  look  and  feel  and  other 
sensible  properties.  But  more  important  than  this  is  the 
fact  that  secondaries,  so  far  from  being  excluded  as 
"  mental ",  and  therefore  non-physical,  actually  belong  to 
the  physicist's  field  of  investigation.  This  is  true,  at  any 
\rate,  for  colours  and  sounds.  In  optics  and  acoustics, 
colours  and  sounds  become  objects  of  investigation,  not  as 
"  sensations  "  or  "  ideas  ",  but  as  phenomena.  The  physi- 
cist's actual  procedure  cuts  right  across,  and  ignores,  all  clas- 
sificatory  boundary-lines  dividing  the  supposedly  physical 
from  the  supposedly  mental.  He  does  not  permit  himself 
to  be  hampered  by  such  barriers  as  these  in  following  up 
the  connections  of  phenomena  with  one  another  or  with 
their  hypothetical  conditions.  When  light  is,  by  a  prism, 
broken  up  into  a  spectral  band  of  colours,  or  when,  in 
spectroscopy,  faint  lines  in  such  spectral  bands  are  taken 
as  evidence  of  the  presence  of  certain  chemical  elements  in 
distant  stars,  there  is  no  suggestion  that,  at  some  point  in 
this  argument,  the  astronomer  steps  across  the  line  which 
divides  "  mind  "  from  "  matter  "  or  "  ideas  from  "  things  ". 
He  deals  in  good  faith  throughout  with  phenomena  to 
which  all  these  divisions  are  utterly  irrelevant.  No  doubt, 
in  dealing  with  colours  as  phenomena,  he  is  thinking  of 
them  as  effects  rather  than  as  qualities.  But  in  what  sense 
are  they  "  effects  "?  Not  in  the  sense  that  they  are  pro- 
duced by  bodies  in  a  non-physical  medium  called  "  mind  ", 
but  in  the  sense  that  they  occur  under  conditions  which 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  107 

can  be  precisely  stated  and  with  which  they  are  correlated 
according  to  precise  laws.  It  is  true  that  in  this  sense  the 
physicist  "  explains  "  sense-data  by  their  "  causes  ",  i.e., 
he  correlates  colours  with  ether- waves  of  which,  as  they 
are  invisible,  he  does  not  need  to  think  as  coloured.  He 
correlates  sounds  with  air-vibrations  which,  as  such,  are 
conceived  as  soundless.  He  correlates  temperatures  with 
molecular  motions  which,  as  such  unfelt,  do  not  need  to  be 
thought  of  as  either  hot  or  cold. 

When  physiology  shows  that  among  the  conditions  of 
which  account  must  be  taken  in  studying  the  occurrence  of 
colours  and  sounds,  are  the  ways  in  which  eyes  and  ears  and 
nervous  systems  are  constructed  and  function,  the  situation 
becomes  more  complex,  but  is  not  altered  in  principle.  And 
for  physiologist,  as  for  physicist,  the  study  of  the  conditions 
is  possible  only  so  far  as  eye  and  ear  are  themselves  visible 
and,  therefore,  coloured,  tangible,  hard,  soft,  and  so  forth. 

To  sum  up:  colours,  and  other  secondaries  (so  far  as 
they  are  considered  at  all)  are,  for  physical  science,  pheno- 
mena, and,  as  such,  effects  rather  than  qualities.  But  they 
are  effects  only  as  correlated  according  to  law  with  other 
phenomena,  actually  observed  or  hypothetically  assumed, 
not  as  removed  from  the  physical  context  into  a  world  of 
ideas.  And  their  being  treated  as  effects  is  not  incompatible 
with  their  being  also  treated  as  qualities.  By  an  obvious 
abstraction,  we  can  define,  as  the  object  of  our  investigation, 
colours  rather  than  coloured  things,  just  as  we  can  define 
psychology  as  concerned  with  mental  processes  rather  than 
with  minds  or  selves.  And  if  we  will  agree  to  say  that  things 
possess,  or  exhibit,  varying  qualities  in  varying  conditions, 
and  that,  as  thus  correlated  with  conditions,  qualities  may 
be  considered  "  effects  ",  no  difficulty  of  principle  stands  in 
the  way  of  accepting  the  conclusions  of  physical  theory  for 
the  familiar  characters  in  which  things  present  themselves 


io8  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch. 

to  our  senses.  So  far  from  saying,  "  This  tree  produces 
a  green  sensation  in  our  minds  ",  we  shall  still  be  able  to  say, 
with  common  sense,  "This  tree  is  green";  only  we  shall 
now  understand  that  this  judgment  is  elliptical  in  that  it 
omits  to  specify  the  conditions  under  which  the  tree  pos- 
sesses, or  exhibits,  the  quality  of  being  green. 

(c)  Why,  thirdly,  do  we  apply  the  causal  point  of  view  to 
sense-data  at  all?  The  question  arises  most  pointedly  in 
the  context  of  psychology,  in  connection  with  theories  of 
the  "  stimulus  "  of  sensation.  The  reason  most  commonly 
given  is  that  sense-data  are  largely  independent  of  our  will: 
they  are  given,  they  come  unsought,  they  force  themselves 
upon  us,  they  interrupt  trains  of  thought,  they  may  have  to 
be,  like  disturbing  noises,  shut  out  by  concentrating  atten- 
tion on  the  matter  in  hand.  But  fully  as  important,  and 
far  less  frequently  noticed,  is  the  fact  that  often  by  one 
sense  we  can  observe  the  sequence  of  events  leading  up 
to  experiences  of  another  sense,  e.g.,  when  feeling  for  a 
match-box  and  striking  a  match  in  the  dark  gives  us  the 
setting  in  which  seeing  light  occurs  as  an  effect;  or  when 
we  watch  a  body  approaching  to  the  moment  of  contact, 
and  then  feel  its  tactual  quality  or  its  temperature.  In  such 
situations  we  may  recognise  the  empirical  basis  from  which 
start  all  attempts  scientifically  to  correlate  phenomena. 
The  mere  fact  that  colours,  sounds,  etc.,  are  given,  does 
not,  by  itself,  lead  to  the  discovery  of  causal  connections  be- 
tween phenomena,  in  the  sense  of  correlations  according 
to  law. 

(2)  Having  tried  to  defend  the  truth  of  the  judgments 
in  which,  perceiving  colours,  we  affirm  them  to  be  qualities 
of  things,  we  turn  now  to  the  second  question,  What  is  the 
real  colour  of  a  thing? 

The  main  reason  for  discussing  this  question  at  all  is 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  109 

that  the  difficulty  of  determining  the  "  real "  colour  has 
been  used — most  recently  by  Bertrand  Russell * — as  a 
premise  for  the  conclusion  that  objects  cannot  really  have 
any  colour  at  all.  The  argument  is  that,  e.g.,  a  so-called 
"  brown  "  table  exhibits  actually  a  large  variety  of  colours, 
according  to  the  incidence  of  light,  the  spectator's  point  of 
view,  the  condition  of  his  eyes,  and  so  forth.  Whence  it  is 
held  to  follow  that  "  colour  is  not  something  which  is  in- 
herent in  the  table,  but  something  depending  upon  the  table 
and  the  spectator  and  the  way  the  light  falls  on  the  table." 2 
All  colours  actually  seen  have  an  equally  good  right  to  be 
considered  real,  and,  therefore,  "  to  avoid  favouritism,  we 
are  compelled  to  deny  that,  in  itself,  the  table  has  any  one 
particular  colour." 3  From  the  point  of  view  which  we 
are  advocating,  the  difficulty  is  wholly  due  to  the  identifica- 
tion of  "  the  real "  colour  with  a  colour  supposedly  "  in- 
herent "  in  the  table  "  by  itself."  Russell  himself  shows 
that,  at  any  moment,  the  colour  of  the  table  is  relative  to 
varying  conditions,  and  that  these  varying  colours  have 
an  equal  right  to  be  considered  real.  Now  these  are  the 
only  colours  with  which,  empirically,  we  ever  can,  or  do, 
deal*  With  a  table  "by  itself",  i.e.,  a  table  abstracted 
from  these  conditions,  and  with  its  colour,  when  so  ab- 
stracted, we  have  no  concern.  We  might  as  well  speculate 
what  colour  things  have  in  the  dark,  and  argue,  with  Locke, 
that  because  they  have  no  colour  then,  they  never  have  any 
colour  at  all.  The  thing  "  by  itself  "  is  a  self-contradictory 
fiction.  A  thing's  qualities  vary  with  different  conditions. 
The  demand  for  qualities  which  shall  be  unchangeably  the 

1  The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  pp.  11  ff.     Cf.  also  H.  A.  Prichard, 
loc.  cit.,  p.  86. 

2  B.  Russell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  13. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  14. 

4  When,  remembering,  or  reflecting,  we  "  think  of "  an  object  as 
blue,  we  are  attributing  to  it  the  colour  we  saw  in  it  and  expect  to 
see  again  in  the  same  conditions.  See  below  (3). 


no  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

same,  however  the  conditions  may  vary,  is  one  for  which  ex- 
perience gives  no  warrant  or  excuse.  Identity,  of  course, 
we  want,  but  not  the  static,  abstract,  identity  of  a  supposed 
thing  "  by  itself  ",  but  a  mobile  identity  in  difference — the 
identity  of  a  thing  which,  in  a  concrete  network  of  relation- 
ships, shows  different  sides  of  itself  in  different  settings, 
and  yet  is,  in  all  this  display  of  differences,  always  "  itself." 

Any  colour,  then,  actually  perceived  is  "  real ",  in  the 
sense  that  the  judgment  attributing  this  colour,  seen  here 
and  now,  to  the  object  is,  so  far  and  in  these  conditions, 
true.  If  further  observations  demand  further  judgments, 
to  the  effect  that,  in  other  parts,  at  other  times,  from  other 
points  of  view,  in  other  illuminations,  the  same  object  has 
other  colours,  then  these  judgments,  too,  are  true  within 
the  limits  of  the  evidence.  What  is  necessary  for  a  syn- 
thesis of  them  is  the  discovery  and  recognition  of  the  sys- 
tem in  which  each  colour-difference  is  correlated  with  differ- 
ences in  the  conditions  under  which  it  occurs. 

It  is  by  a  similar,  but  more  selective,  synthesis  that  we 
can  speak  of  the  "  real "  colour  of  a  thing,  so  far  as  that 
phrase  implies  "  a  normal  spectator  from  an  ordinary  point 
of  view  under  usual  conditions  of  light." *  There  is  no 
reference  here  to  the  object  "  by  itself ",  but  either  to  the 
average,  or  the  most  frequent,  or,  else,  to  the  best  and  most 
favourable,  conditions  of  perception.  There  is,  in  other 
words,  an  attempt  at  standardisation.  Now  it  must  be  con- 
ceded that,  with  colours,  such  attempts  have  not  succeeded 
far,  though  sufficiently  for  the  rough-and-ready  uses  of  prac- 
tical life.  The  main  obstacle  lies  in  the  difficulty  of  measur- 
ing, and  the  consequent  lack  of  precision.  This  appears 
clearly  enough  when  we  turn  to  the  corresponding  problems 
of  the  "  real  "  size,  or  "  real  "  shape,  or  "  real  "  temperature 
of  an  object.  All  these  are  standardisations  amidst  a  vari- 

*Loc.  c*t,  p.  14. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  1 1 1 

ety  of  perceptual  "  appearances  ".  The  same  thing,  seen  at 
different  distances,  has  different  sizes.  A  circular  coin  looks 
elliptical  from  most  points  of  view;  the  warmth  of  a  fire 
increases  as  we  approach.  In  fact,  we  can  here,  as  above, 
agree  on  what  shall  be  normal  conditions  of  perception,  but 
the  decisive  solution  is  through  measurement.  The  "  real  " 
distance  is  the  measured  distance,  and  so  for  figure,  or  tem- 
perature. It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  measuring 
comes  down,  in  the  last  resort,  to  the  accuracy  with  which 
an  observer  can  perceive  the  coincidence  of  two  lines,  e.g., 
of  the  top  of  a  mercury  column  with  the  notches  on  the 
scale  alongside  it.1  But,  whether  or  no  we  can  measure,  the 
way  to  "  save  the  appearances  "  is  not  to  deny  them  whole- 
sale of  the  object  "  by  itself  ",  and  consign  them  to  some 
metaphysical  limbo  of  illusions,  but  to  correlate  them  with 
their  varying  conditions.  Thus,  for  example,  we  learn  to 
understand  why  "  the  "  sound  which  a  bicycle-bell  makes  is 
heard  as  a  different  sound  by  hearers  at  different  distances 
or  of  different  auditory  acuity.  The  miracle  would  be  if 
there  were  no  such  differences — if  what  each  hearer  hears 
and  calls  "  the  "  sound  of  the  bell  were  actually  identical 
in  quality  for  all.  Except  as  identity  in  difference,  there  is 
no  way  of  getting  an  intelligible  synthesis  of  the  data. 

(3)  We  turn  to  our  third  problem,  which  was  whether  an 
object,  perceived  to  be  coloured,  is  "  really  "  coloured  in  the 
sense  that  it  is,  or  remains,  coloured  at  times  when  it  is  not 
perceived  by  any  one.  In  short,  does  the  esse-est-percipi 
principle  apply  to  colours  and  other  secondary  qualities?  If 
it  does,  then  the  further  question  arises,  how  are  we  to  think 
of  the  object,  i.e.,  what  character  we  are  to  attribute  to  it, 
in  the  intervals  of  its  being  perceived. 

1  Mr.  T.  P.  Nunn  has  some  excellent  observations  on  this  whole 
subject  in  his  book,  The  Aim  and  Achievement  of  Scientific  Method, 
pp.  5-7. 


ii2  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

To  judge  from  the  present  state  of  the  discussion  of  this 
problem,  the  question  is  an  entirely  open  one.  Even  a  pro- 
fessed realist,  like  Russell,  is  found  scandalising  his  fellow- 
realists  by  admitting  it  "as  probable  that  the  immediate 
objects  of  sense  [  =  sense-data,  or  secondary  qualities]  de- 
pend for  their  existence  upon  physiological  conditions  in 
ourselves,  and  that,  for  example,  the  coloured  surfaces 
which  we  see  cease  to  exist  when  we  shut  our  eyes."  *  Nor 
does  he  shrink  from  the  consequences  of  his  view:  "The 
starry  heaven,  for  instance,  becomes  actual  whenever  we 
choose  to  look  at  it," 2  where,  of  course,  the  phrase  "  the 
starry  heaven  "  means  strictly  nothing  but  the  yellowish 
spots  of  light  in  a  dark  expanse  which  are  "  the  immediate 
objects  of  sense  "  in  this  case. 

The  first  point  to  note,  in  approaching  this  problem,  is 
that,  quite  apart  from  the  presence  of  a  spectator,  or  from 
dependence  on  his  physiological  condition,  we  do  not,  on 
reflection,  believe  that  objects  are  coloured  (or  that  colours 
exist)  always  and  under  any  conditions.  Both  common 
sense  and  physical  science  recognise  that  colours  vary  with 
variations  in  the  illumination,  and  that  in  the  absence  of 
light  they  disappear,  i.e.,  cease  to  exist.  No  doubt,  it  is 
barely  possible  to  argue  that  the  colours  are  there  all  the 
time,  and  that  the  presence  of  light  is  necessary  only  to 
their  being  seen.  But  such  a  view  could  certainly  not  be 
established  by  an  appeal  to  experience,  and  would  have  to 
be  based,  in  the  last  resort,  on  the  principle  of  identity 
abstractly  interpreted.  The  principle  of  identity  lays  it 
down  that  "  every  thing  is  what  it  is."  The  issue — one  of 
those  fundamental  issues  which  run  through  the  whole  his- 
tory of  philosophy  and  seem  destined  to  be  re-tried  by 
each  new  generation — is  whether  this  principle  demands  that 

1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  64. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  112. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  1 13 

we  should  attribute  to  each  thing  an  absolute  character,  i.e., 
a  character  not  variable  with  varying  conditions,  but  un- 
changed and  fixed  in  whatever  setting  or  relationships  the 
thing  may  exist,  or  that  we  should  acknowledge  its  char- 
acter to  be  relative  to  conditions,  and  its  identity,  or  self- 
maintenance,  to  consist  just  in  the  resourcefulness  (so  to 
speak)  with  which  it  responds  differently  to  different  set- 
tings. On  the  latter  interpretation,  a  synthesis  of  the  mani- 
fold data  of  experience  becomes  possible;  on  the  former,  the 
changeless  identity  of  each  thing  must  either  be  sought  in 
some  hypothetical  character  which  does  not  appear  in  the 
flux  of  empirical  data  at  all,  or  else  we  must  elevate  each 
separate  datum  here  and  now  to  the  rank  of  a  tiny  abso- 
lute. The  philosophers  who  have  explored  this  path,  have 
had  little  success,  and  meanwhile  the  weight  of  common 
sense  and  of  science  is  against  them,  and  in  favour  of  the 
philosophers  who  have  interpreted  the  principle  of  identity 
concretely,  i.e.,  as  identity  in  difference. 

But  to  return  from  this  debate  on  principles  to  the  em- 
pirical situation.  We  are  from  experience  familiar  with 
perceptions  of  the  "  same  "  object x  in  different  conditions 
of  light.  We  perceive  it  coloured  in  bright  daylight,  and 
colourless  in  the  dark,  identifying  it  then  either  by  touch,  or, 
in  very  dim  light,  by  seeing  outline  and  shape.  And  there 
are  all  intermediate  stages.  The  problem  is  so  to  interpret 
our  judgments  of  perception  concerning  the  colour  of  ob- 
jects as  to  save  all  these  empirical  data.  The  way  to  do  I 
this  is  neither  to  affirm  that  the  object  has  "  really  "  no  j 
colour  at  all,  nor  to  attribute  to  it,  as  "  real ",  an  absolute, 
unchangeable  colour  which  is  different  from  all,  or  most,  of 
the  colours  perceived  in  it,  but  to  correlate  the  observed 

1The  right  to  say  the  "same"  rests,  of  course,  precisely  on  such  a 
synthesis  of  different  perceptual  data  as  we  are  trying  to  defend 
throughout. 


ii4  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

differences  with  differences  in  the  conditions  under  which, 
in  each  case,  the  object  is  what  it  is.  The  result  of  the 
application  of  this  point  of  view  to  the  interpretation  of 
judgments  of  perception  is  that,  e.g.,  the  judgment,  "  This 
is  blue  ",  made  in  the  moment  of  perception,  will  not  now 
be  taken  to  mean,  "  This  is  blue  always,  however  light  and 
other  conditions  may  vary  ",  but  "  This  is  blue  here  and 
now."  And  the  "  here  and  now "  will,  with  increasing 
knowledge  and  completer  analysis  of  the  whole  context, 
give  way  to  "  under  conditions  such  as  these  ",  where  the 
conditions  are  as  exhaustively  and  precisely  specified  as  our 
evidence  permits.  Thus  qualified  by  the  inclusion  of  explicit 
conditions,  the  judgment  not  only  permits  of  other  colours 
being  predicated  of  the  same  thing  under  other  conditions, 
but  also  is  true  both  at  the  moment  of  perception  and  "  al- 
ways ".  For  the  statement  of  conditions,  "  such  as  these  ", 
generalises  the  particular  datum  and  invests  it  with  the 
truth  belonging  to  an  instance  of  a  universal.1 

The  principle,  then,  here  advocated  for  the  saving  of 
appearances  demands  that  the  possession  of  qualities  by  an 
object  be  taken,  not  as  absolute,  but  as  relative.  It  is 
dependent  on  conditions,  some  of  which  are  comparatively 
uniform  and  stable,  others  of  which  are  variable  and  transi- 
tory. What  the  conditions  in  any  given  case  are  is  as  much 
a  question  for  empirical  analysis  and  synthesis,  as  is  the 
corresponding  question  how  to  recognise  and  identify  cer- 
tain data  in  the  flux  of  experience  as  appearances  of  the 
"  same  "  thing. 

If,  then,  there  are,  as  there  would  seem  to  be,  good  rea- 
sons for  saying  that  colours,  and  other  secondary  qualities, 
are  found  to  occur  only  under  conditions  which  include  the 
presence  of  a  properly  functioning  physiological  organism, 

1  A  fuller  discussion  of  this  view  of  truth  will  be  offered  in  a  sequel 
to  the  present  volume  of  Studies. 


Ch.V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES "  115 

no  a  priori  prejudices  ought  to  stand  in  the  way.  If  colours 
vary  with  physical  conditions,  why  not  with  physiological 
conditions,  which,  after  all,  are  physical,  too? 

At  this  point,  however,  an  objection  will  be  raised,  not  so 
much  on  the  score  of  the  general  principle,  as  on  the  ground 
of  its  consequences  when  applied,  as  here,  to  making  human 
beings,  or,  in  general,  living  beings  with  sense-organs,  one 
of  the  conditions  of  the  occurrence  of  secondary  qualities. 
The  objector  will  urge  that,  according  to  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution, the  physical  world  existed  before  there  were  living 
beings  in  it: — what,  at  that  time,  were  its  qualities?  And, 
in  any  case,  there  are  even  now  many  physical  things  which 
are  never  perceived  by  any  living  being,  so  far  as  we  know, 
and  there  is  no  physical  thing  which  is  perceived  all  the 
time.  If  unperceived  objects  have  no  secondary  qualities, 
what  qualities  have  they? 

Two  replies  may  be  made  to  this  objection.    In  the  first 
place,  judgments  of  perception,  whether  primitive,  or  ampli- 
fied by  conditions,  are  retained  by  memory.-    In  other 
words,  we  "  think  of "  objects  as  possessing  the  qualities 
which  we  perceived  in  them.    Does  this  mean  that  we  think 
of  them  as  possessing  these  qualities  even  when  no  one 
perceives  them?     No — as  little  as  the  perception  of  an 
object  as  hot  compels  us  to  think  of  it  as  always  hot.    We 
cannot,  in  memory,  endow  the  object  with  any  qualities 
except  those  which  we  found  it  to  have  at  the  times,  and 
under  the  conditions,  under  which  it  was  perceived.    And 
if  we  have  perceived  it  frequently,  and  for  continuous 
stretches  of  time,  we  may  ultimately  be  able  to  piece  to- 
gether these  data  and  think  of  all  the  details  of  the  object's 
existence  and  behaviour,  as  if  we  were  continuously  observ- 
ing it.    In  this  manner  we  fill  out  the  gaps  by  analogy, 
imagining  the  qualities  we  should  see,  if  perception  were 
possible.     We  can  anticipate  what,  under  statable  con- 


n6  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

ditions,  we  shall  see,  and  verify  our  anticipations  by  realis- 
ing the  conditions  and  perceiving  what  we  had  expected  to 
perceive.  In  this  context,  "  thinking  of "  an  object  as 
blue  means  remembering  that  one  has  seen  it  to  be  blue, 
and  expecting  to  see  it  as  blue  again.  Certainly,  in  ordi- 
nary intercourse,  we  talk  and  think  of  objects  as  blue,  i.e., 
judge  them  to  have  that  colour,  at  times  when  we  do  not 
perceive  them.  But  a  judgment  expressed  thus  roughly,  and 
without  nice  qualification,  cannot  fairly  be  taken  to  mean 
that  the  objects  are  blue  now,  or  apart  from  any  conditions. 
If  this  were  its  meaning,  it  would  simply  be  false.  But 
these  judgments  can  be  saved,  too,  by  interpreting  their 
meaning  to  be  that  the  objects  are  blue,  */  perceived  under 
proper  conditions — which  is,  in  fact,  all  that  the  evidence 
of  past  experience  justifies,  and  the  evidence  of  future  ex- 
perience can  verify.  We  have  a  right,  then,  to  think  of 
objects  in  the  intervals  of  perception,  as  we  should  find 
them  to  be  if  we  were  perceiving  them.  And,  on  the  same 
principle,  basing  ourselves  on  present  perceptual  evidence, 
we  reconstruct  in  imagination  what  we  should  have  seen, 
heard,  felt,  had  we  lived  in  ages  of  the  world  when,  in  fact, 
no  living  things  yet  existed.  Again,  having  never  seen  atoms, 
we  think  of  them  as  colourless,  but  if  some  new  discovery 
in  microscopical  instruments  were  ever  to  make  an  atom 
visible,  can  we  doubt  that  we  should  see  it  coloured? 

But  this  is  not  quite  the  end  of  the  problem.  For  the 
objection  we  are  discussing  rests,  at  bottom,  on  the  principle 
that  everything  which  exists  has  a  nature  or  character;  that 
all  existence  is  qualified  existence.  Hence,  if  an  object  has 
certain  qualities  only  at  certain  times,  and  under  certain 
conditions,  and  yet  is  to  be  thought  of  as  existing  at  other 
times,  and  under  other  conditions,  then  it  does  not  seem  a 
meaningless  question  to  ask:  What  is  the  nature,  what  are 
the  qualities,  of  objects  unperceived?  The  temptation  is 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  117 

great  to  try  and  get  behind  the  tantalising  "  if "  and 
"  should  "  in  our  sentence,  above,  about  "  thinking  of  ob- 
jects in  the  intervals  of  perception  as  we  should  find  them  to 
be  if  we  were  perceiving  them."  If  we  yield  to  the  tempta- 
tion, we  shall  be  drawn  into  speculative  guesses  beyond  the 
reach  of  perceptual  evidence.  We  shall,  with  Berkeley,  say 
that  objects  are  at  all  times  perceived  by  God,  or  with 
panpsychists  of  all  shades,  that  each  object  is  inwardly  a 
will,  or  soul,  and  exists  in  its  own  right  as  such.  But  a  more 
cautious  temper  in  philosophising,  guided  by  the  empirical 
distinctions  between  things  in  the  context  of  Nature,  will 
content  itself  with  a  solution  which  keeps  closer  to  the 
evidence.  It  will  either  extend  to  objects  unperceived  the 
deliberate  abstraction  from  secondary  qualities  and  the  con- 
ditions of  perception,  which  characterises  the  point  of  view 
of  "  mechanical  theory  ".  It  will  then  think  of  unperceived 
objects  in  terms  only  of  primary  qualities,  i.e.,  of  those 
qualities  which  are  involved  in  the  purely  "  mechanical " 
relations  of  things  to  each  other.  Or,  else,  it  will  recognise 
that  the  knowledge  of  things  which  we  have  through  the 
senses  is  subject  to  conditions,  and  that  the  path  of  wisdom 
is  to  accept  these  conditions  and  make  the  most  of  the  re- 
sources which  perception  puts  at  our  disposal,  rather  than 
indulge  in  speculations,  however  fascinating,  for  which  the 
evidence  furnishes  neither  basis  nor  verification.  Percep-v 
tion  furnishes  genuine  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  physical 
things,  and  we  know  more,  not  less,  about  them  when  we 
discover  that  the  qualities  which  we  perceive  them  to  have 
are  subject  to,  and  variable  with,  conditions  of  which  we 
can  formulate  the  laws.  This  is  all  which  the  argument,  so 
far,  fairly  entitles  us  to  say,  though  something  more  re- 
mains to  be  added  below.1 

1  See  p.  135.    The  view  in  the  text  tries  to  do  justice  to  what  is  sound 
in   the   phenomenalistic   position.     Mill's    formula    for   that   position, 


n8  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

(4)  In  the  light  of  the  preceding  discussions,  our  fourth 
problem  can  be  briefly  disposed  of.  It  concerns  the  ques- 
tion whether  different  percipients,  since  for  each  the  object, 
according  to  the  different  conditions  under  which  he  per- 
ceives it,  has  different  qualities,  can  be  said  to  be  perceiving 
the  same  object,  or  even  merely  to  be  seeing  the  same  col- 
our or  hearing  the  same  sound.  In  Russell's  picturesque 
terminology,  if  the  sense-data  are  "  private ",  is  there  a 
"  public  "  object  at  all,  and  if  there  is,  can  the  private  sense- 
data  possibly  be  qualities  of  the  public  object?  In  The 
Problems  of  Philosophy,  Russell  argues  that  our  "  instinc- 
tive belief " — for  it  is  no  more  than  that  to  him — that  we 
perceive  the  same  objects,  can  be  reconciled  with  the  dif- 
ferences in  our  sense-data  only  by  assuming  that  the  object 
is  something  "  over  and  above "  the  sense-data,  distinct 
from  them  in  existence  and  qualities.1  In  Our  Knowledge 
of  the  External  World,  on  the  other  hand,  Russell  (wings 
over  to  the  view  that  the  physical  thing  is  not  something 
other  than  the  sense-data  which  we  call  its  qualities,  but  is 
the  system,  or  set,  of  these,  though  each  be  perceptible  only 
to  one  spectator  at  one  time  and  place.  In  short,  Russell 
is  here  no  longer  divorcing  the  thing  from  its  "  appear- 
ances ":  he  now  sets  himself  the  explicit  task  of  "  finding 


defining  a  physical  thing  as  a  "  permanent  possibility  of  sensations  ", 
is  awkward,  and  lays  itself  open  to  the  retort,  that  what  is  "  possible  " 
(i.e.,  may  occur)  is  sensations,  and  that  what  is  "permanent"  and 
makes  sensations  possible,  must  itself  be  actual,  with  a  nature  of  its 
own  (Cf.  G.  F.  Stout,  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  vol.  iv, 
article  on  Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities}.  Russell's  account  of  a 
thing  as  a  logical  construct  of  actual  and  ideal  sense-data  is  a  vast 
improvement  on  Mill's.  Russell's  suggestion  that,  if  we  know  under 
what  conditions  an  "  ideal "  sense-datum  (i.e.,  a  sense-datum  thought 
of)  becomes  an  "actual"  sense-datum  (i.e.,  one  actually  sensed  by 
a  mind),  it  is  unnecessary  even  for  physical  science  to  assign  exist- 
ence to  the  ideal  elements,  is  closely  similar  to  the  view  in  the  text. 
(Cf.  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  112). 

1 "  One  great  reason  why  it  is  felt  that  we  must  secure  a  physical 
object  in  addition  to  the  sense-data,  is  that  we  want  the  same  object 
for  different  people." — The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  pp.  31,  2. 


Ch.V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES "  119 

a  place  "2  for  all  data;  in  fact,  saving  the  appearances  by 
correlation  in  a  system  on  what  we  have 'called  (though 
Russell  would  not)  the  principle  of  identity  in  difference. 
The  point  is  exactly  the  same,  at  bottom,  as  that  which  has 
occupied  us  in  the  preceding  problems.  Are  we  to  seek 
the  identity  of  the  object — its  character  as  existing,  its  what-\ 
it-is — apart  from  its  various  appearances  in  the  world  of 
sense,  or  are  we  to  identify  these,  construe  them  in  spite  of 
their  difference  from  one  another  as  none  the  less  its  ap- 
pearances— different  appearances  of  the  same  thing?  If 
the  latter  is  possible  at  all,  there  need  be,  in  principle,  no 
limit  to  the  number  of  different  appearances,  provided  only 
and  always  that  the  judgments  affirming  this  interpretation 
do  not  contradict  each  other.  And  such  contradiction  is 
avoided  by  resting  them  on  the  system  in  which  each  ap- 
pearance is  correlated  with  its  exclusive  conditions. 

From  the  first  group  of  problems,  in  which  we  have 
argued  on  the  basis  that  we  know  physical  things  by  per- 
ception, because  every  perception  is  a  judgment  interpreting 
sense-data  as  qualities  of  things,  we  must  now  turn  to  our 
second  group.  The  problems  of  this  second  group  may 
conveniently  be  formulated  as  follows: 

(1)  Is  the  view  that  every  perception  is  a  judgment  cor- 
rect?   If  not,  what  is  the  difference  between  them,  and  what 
the  motive,  or  ground,  for  passing  from  a  perception  to  a 
judgment  "  about "  what  we  perceive?     Is  there  such  a 
thing  as  "  pure "  perception,  into  which  judgment  does 
not  enter,  and,  if  so,  what  is  its  cognitive  function  and 
value? 

(2)  What  is  the  relation  in  a  judgment  of  perception  be- 
tween datum  and  interpretation?     For  it  appears  to  be 

lLoc.  cit.,  p.  97. 


120  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

agreed  on  all  sides  that,  whatever  our  answer  to  (i)  may 
be,  a  judgment,  at  any  rate,  transcends  a  bare  datum,  and 
the  analysis  of  it,  therefore,  demands  that  we  distinguish 
between  the  given  and  what,  by  interpretation  or  construc- 
tion, the  given  is  identified  as  meaning.  We  affirm,  or  be- 
lieve in,  the  existence  of  more  than  is  simply  found  within 
the  four  corners  of  the  given  here  and  now.  What  makes 
this  transcendence,  this  expansion  of  the  given,  possible? 
What,  above  all,  justifies  it?  We  shall  have,  at  least,  to 
touch  on  the  whole  problem  of  meaning  which,  despite 
many  nibblings  at  it  in  recent  psychology  and  philosophy, 
has  hardly  yet  begun  to  yield  up  the  solution  of  its  riddle.1 

(3)  Has  our  analysis  of  what  is  given  in  perception,  up 
to  this  point,  exhausted  all  the  clues  for  the  discrimination 
and  recognition  of  things  as  "  individual "  objects,  self- 
identical  despite  change? 

These  problems,  again,  we  shall  survey  in  order,  seeking, 
as  before,  to  "  save  the  appearances." 

(i)  The  question,  "What  do  we  perceive?  ",  if  under- 
stood in  the  sense  of,  "  What  do  we  know  by  pure  percep- 
tion, without  judgment?  ",  is  not  nearly  as  easy  to  answer 
as  is  sometimes  assumed.  It  throws  us  back  inevitably  on 
some  theory  about  perception,  into  which  much  more  enters 
than  can  be  got  from  a  naive  inspection  of  examples  of 
perception.  The  obvious  advice,  "  Take  a  perception  and 
analyse  it ",  is  deceptive  in  its  simplicity.  For  there  is 
no  infallible  way  of  analysing  correctly  or  getting  a  true 
theory  by  simply  looking  and  recording  what  is  there.  Too 
many  philosophers  (and  psychologists,  too)  indulge  the 
pleasant  habit  of  assuming  that  "  introspection  "  can  do  no 
wrong,  and  that  all  that  is  needed  is  to  put  the  findings  of 

1  Cf.  my  article,  Image,  Idea,  and  Meaning,  in  Mills,  N.  S.,  vol.  xvi, 
no.  41. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  121 

introspection  into  words.  To  dispel  this  illusion  it  is  enough 
that  we  remind  ourselves  of  the  utterly  disparate  and  mutu- 
ally contradictory  analyses  of  perception  which  are  being 
offered,  if  not  always  in  the  name  of  introspection,  at  least 
in  the  name  of  what  is  euphemistically  called  an  "  unpre- 
judiced inspection  of  the  facts  ".  Introspection  has  been 
much  criticised,  chiefly  on  the  grounds  that  it  is  difficult  to 
introspect  experiences  whilst  one  has  them,  and  impossible 
to  introspect  the  experiences  of  others.  But  the  biggest 
difficulty  of  all — a  difficulty  attaching  to  every  theory  claim- 
ing to  be  based  on  a  plain  inspection  of  facts — is  hardly 
mentioned  in  the  literature.  It  arises  from  the  fact  that 
the  findings,  in  order  to  yield  usable  theory,  must  be  put 
into  words.  But  what  dictates  the  words  to  be  employed? 
What  makes  the  difference  between  a  true  and  a  false  re- 
port? One  theorist  "  finds "  that  what  we  perceive  is 
"  things  ",  qualified  things.  Another  "  finds  "  that  we  per- 
ceive neither  things  nor  qualities,  but  just  sense-data.  What 
a  third  "  finds  "  are  "  sensations  ",  and  he  will  talk  of  col- 
ours, sounds,  etc.,  as  qualities  of  sensations  and  there  is, 
so  far,  for  him  no  evidence  of  objects  extra  mentem.  What 
a  fourth  "  finds  "  are  "  acts  "  of  sensing  and  either  "  con- 
tents "  or  "  objects  ",  where  it  remains  a  moot  question 
whether  these  are  sense-data  or  physical  things.  The 
"  raw,  unverbalised  "  facts,  as  James  happily  calls  them, 
appear  to  suffer  any  one  of  these  analyses  as  patiently  as 
any  other.  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  question,  Which  is  the 
true  report?  can  be  settled  only  in  a  general  context  of 
theory  in  which  such  rival  descriptions  are  supported  as 
much  as  supporting? 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  typical  account  of  "  pure  per- 
ception ":  "  The  stage  of  pure  perception  of  a  coloured  sur- 
face corresponds,  it  would  seem,  to  the  state  of  a  man  who 
just  reads  the  enumeration  or  sees  the  figure  of  the  47th 


122  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

proposition  (of  the  first  book  of  Euclid),  but  to  whom  the 
words  and  figure  convey  no  meaning  'V  This  amounts  to 
saying  that  the  object  of  pure  perception  consists  of  bare 
sense-data,  as  they  come  and  go,  stripped  of  every  vestige 
of  interpretation.  Moreover,  to  judge  that  the  object  of 
perception  is  just  what  we  perceive  it  to  be,  could  at  best 
only  amount  to  taking  each  sense-datum  for  just  what  it  is. 
We  should  have  no  right  to  say  that  things  and  qualities  are 
perceived.  Judgments  like  "  this  is  a  tree  ",  or  "  this  tree 
is  green  and  is  waving  about  in  the  wind  "  (to  take  Broad's 
own  examples),  could  not  be  offered  as  judgments  of  percep- 
tion, the  truth  of  which  was  infallibly  derived  from,  and 
guaranteed  by,  the  accompanying  perception.  For  in  all 
tsuch  judgments  there  is  interpretation.  A  meaning  is  af- 
firmed of  which  pure  perception,  ex  hypothesi,  contains  no 
trace.  Even  the  mere  "  this  is  green  "  bursts  across  the 
boundaries  of  the  object  of  pure  perception  when  they  are 
thus  narrowly  drawn.  For  green  is  a  universal,  and  no 
universal  can  be  tied  down  to  any  momentary  particular  in 
which  it  is  realised.  To  see  and  recognise  "  this "  as 
"  green  "  is  to  think  of  "  this  "  as  a  case  or  instance  of  being 
green,  as  a  member  of  the  class  of  green  particulars.  But 
what  hint  does  the  pure  datum  here  and  now  contain  of 
other  data  of  the  same  sort,  or  of  membership  in  a  class 
of  similars?  Thus,  the  more  we  push  back  to  the  pure 
datum,  the  harder  does  it  become  to  identify  any  cognition 
which  could  fairly  be  said  to  arise  just  from  it,  by  itself, 
and  to  be  assured  by  it  of  infallible  truth.  Facing  in  this 
direction,  we  move  further  and  further  away  from  getting 
out  of  perception  anything  remotely  like  the  world  of  com- 
mon experience  with  its  relatively  permanent  things,  exhibit- 
ing in  different  settings  a  wide  range  of  different  qualities. 
The  world  of  immediate  data  is  a  chaos  in  which  nothing 
1  C.  D.  Broad,  Perception,  Physics,  and  Reality,  pp.  24,  5. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  123 

is  permanent,  nothing  so  connected  that  we  can  identify 
any  two  data  as  appearances  or  qualities  of  the  same  thing. 
The  question — to  quote  Russell's  wording  of  it — becomes 
urgent:  "  By  what  principles  shall  we  select  certain  data 
from  the  chaos,  and  call  them  appearances  of  the  same' 
thing?  " 1  The  appeal  to  pure  perception,  thus,  throws 
into  more  vivid  relief  the  fact  that,  in  intelligent  perception, 
we  always  mean  very  much  more  than  we  perceive,  at  least 
if  we  whittle  down  what  we  perceive  to  bare  sense-data. 
This  becomes  unmistakable  when  we  put  into  language  what 
we  perceive,  or  think  we  perceive.  For  language  is  not 
only,  for  beings  given  to  philosophising,  the  most  convenient 
vehicle  of  judgment,  but  the  meanings  of  words,  being  uni- 
versal, transcend  the  data  even  when  particularised  by 
application  to  them.  This  is  true  even  of  "  this  "  as  the  in- 
strument par  excellence  of  emphatic  particular isation.  For, 
taken  abstractly,  there  is  hardly  another  word  in  the  lan- 
guage which  has  so  wide  a  range  of  potential  application, 
being  used  to  designate  anything  and  everything  which  can 
appear  in  the  focus  of  attention.  Thus  a  datum  of  percep- 
tion is  never  more  than  a  cue  for  a  meaning,  and  the  mean- 
ing, though  identified  with  this  datum  here  and  now,  as  a 
whole  transcends  it.  Yet  the  whole  meaning  is  judged  to 
be  real  on  the  strength  of  the  real  datum,  taken  as  a  frag- 
ment of  the  whole,  and  as  a  sign  of  its  presence.  The  given 
carries  a  meaning,  from  which  it  derives  its  full  character 
and  to  which  it  guarantees  existence  by  its  own  existence, 
by  being  itself  emphatically  there. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  this  curiously  double-edged 
character  of  transcendence  should  attract  philosophical  in- 
terest now  rather  by  one  of  its  sides,  now  rather  by  the 

1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  108.  It  might  have 
been  even  better  to  ask,  "By  what  principles  do  we  select?"  for  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  we  do  select  and  identify,  and,  in  the  main, 
do  so  rightly. 


124  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

other.  To  some,  like  Russell,  the  problem,  above  all  others, 
is  how,  and  by  what  right,  we  pass  from  data  to  non-data. 
And,  since  the  data  seem  to  guarantee  so  very  little,  these 
thinkers  gravitate  towards  a  profound  doubt  concerning  the 
validity  of  the  elaborate  superstructures  which  common 
sense  and  science  so  readily  erect.  Yet  what  choice  is  there? 
We  neither  do,  nor  can,  stop  at  the  point  of  pure  perception, 
even  supposing  that  unordered,  uninterpreted  sense-data  do 
form  the  actual  first  stage  in  the  process  of  our  learning 
to  know  the  physical  world.  Transcend,  synthesise,  order, 
invest  with  meaning  we  do,  and  must,  even  at  the  least 
speculative  level  of  perception.  Does  it  help  to  suspect, 
or  depreciate,  root  and  branch  this  transcending  of  data, 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  everywhere  shaped  by  hope  and 
fear,  whim  and  convenience,  that  it  rests  on  nothing  better 
than  "  instinctive  belief  "?  To  say  this  is  to  say  that  tran- 
scending is,  at  bottom,  irrational,  and  that,  at  best,  reason 
has  no  other  function  than  that  of  organising  into  the  most 
harmonious  possible  system  the  instinctive  beliefs  in  virtue 
of  which  we  do  transcend  the  data  and  cannot  help  tran- 
scending them.1  Is  it  not  preferable  to  explore  the  obvious 
alternative?  According  to  this,  the  data  themselves  demand 
to  be  transcended,  furnishing  clues  for  doing  so  precisely 
through  their  universal  character,  which  it  is  the  function 

1  This  is,  clearly,  the  general  position  set  forth  in  the  remarkable 
passage  at  the  end  of  ch.  ii  (pp.  39-41)  of  Russell's  The  Problems  of 
Philosophy.  Note  especially :  "  All  knowledge,  we  find,  must  be  built 
up  upon  our  instinctive  beliefs,  and  if  these  are  rejected,  nothing  is 
left";  and  "There  can  never  be  any  reason  for  rejecting  one  in- 
stinctive belief  except  that  it  clashes  with  others ;  thus,  if  they  are 
found  to  harmonise,  the  whole  system  becomes  worthy  of  acceptance." 
Yet  Russell's  actual  practice  is  to  cut  down  the  number  of  admissible 
instinctive  beliefs  to  the  point  where  they  almost  vanish.  Thus,  he 
would  dearly  like  to  be  able  to  dispense  with  the  instinctive  belief 
in  the  existence  of  other  minds,  and  build  his  world  on  a  solipsistic 
basis  of  his  own  sense-data  plus  the  principles  of  pure  logic.  That, 
however,  only  raises  the  further  awkward  question,  What  justifies 
the  application  of  logic  to  sense-data,  the  treatment  of  sense-data  as 
"values"  for  the  "variables"  of  logic? 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  125 

of  reason  to  seize  upon  and  follow  up  into  that  system  of 
meanings  which,  as  most  comprehensive  and  internally  cohe- 
rent, constitutes  "  truth "  and  "  reality ",  and  hence  is 
affirmed  as  the  true  nature  of  that  real  world  to  which  each 
moment's  data  bear  witness.1 

So  far,  then,  we  can  conclude  only  that  neither  can  tran- 
scendence be  avoided  by  falling  back  on  pure  perception, 
nor  ought  it  to  be  condemned  as  merely  instinctive.  It  is 
the  very  life  of  reason,  the  very  process  of  discovering 
truth  under  the  pressure  of  the  "  logic  of  the  facts  ". 

But  mention  of  truth  may  remind  us  that  there  is  another 
angle  from  which  it  has  been  asserted  that  perception,  as 
"  knowledge  of  things  ",  is  completely  different  from  judg- 
ment, as  "knowledge  of  truths"  (i.e.,  propositions),  and 
that  a  special  function  and  value  belong  to  it  as  a  mode  of 
knowledge  which  cannot  possibly  ever  be  mistaken.  Per-^ 
ception,  it  is  said,  is  a  two-term  relation  of  mind  to  object, 
and  since  there  must  be  an  object  for  a  mind  to  have  this 
relation  to  it,  perception  cannot  be  deceptive.  There  can  be 
no  misperceiving,  we  are  told,  for  that  would  be  perceiving 
the  non-existent,  or,  rather,  perceiving  what  is  not  there, 
or,  else,  what  is  not  so.  "  I  may  ",  says  G.  E.  Moore,  in 
advocating  this  view,  "judge  with  regard  to  an  animal 

1  It  is  not  a  mere  paradox  to  suggest  that  Russell's  "  instinctive 
beliefs"  (Cf.  preceding  footnote)  are  identical  in  function  with  what 
"  idealists "  have  called  "  categ9ries  of  thought "  or  "  principles  of 
reason  ".  Kant's  "  synthetic  activity  of  the  understanding  ",  applying 
the  categories  to  the  manifold  of  sense  and  thus  constructing  objects 
judged  to  be  empirically  real,  has  undeniable  affinities  with  the  order- 
ing and  interpreting  of  sense-data  along  the  lines  of  instinctive  beliefs. 
The  categories  of  thing  and  quality  correspond,  for  example,  to  the 
instinctive  belief  that  diverse  sense-data  are  appearance  of  the  same 
thing.  And  in  both  cases  the  question  is  how  to  select  the  sense-data 
which  are  to  be  identified  as  qualities,  or  appearances,  of  this  thing 
rather  than  of  that.  The  differences  in  detail  between  Kant  and 
Russell  are,  no  doubt,  profound.  But  are  not  both,  at  bottom,  trying 
to  solve  the  same  problem  with  assumptions  the  similarity  of  which 
is  disguised  by  differences  of  terminology? 


126  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

which  I  see  at  a  distance,  that  it  is  a  sheep,  when  in  fact  it 
is  a  pig.  And  here  my  judgment  is  certainly  not  due  to  the 
fact  that  I  see  it  to  be  a  sheep;  since  I  cannot  possibly  see 
a  thing  to  be  a  sheep  unless  it  is  one  ".*  In  more  technical 
language  Russell  analyses  perception  as  involving  only  the 
object  a  R  b  and  the  perceiving  mind,  whereas  judgment  in- 
volves the  mind  which  judges  that  a  stands  in  the  relation 
R  to  b.  The  objection  that  there  are  errors  of  perception, 
Russell  tries  to  meet  by  saying  that,  whilst  no  perception 
can  be  mistaken,  we  may  wrongly  think  we  are  perceiving 
when,  in  fact,  we  are  not.2  Unfortunately,  he  does  not  tell 
us  how  to  recognise  a  genuine  perception  when  we  have  one. 
And,  thus,  after  all,  the  infallibility  of  perception  turns  out 
to  be,  not  so  much  an  empirical  fact,  as  an  a  priori  defini- 
tion, framed — as  if  in  confirmation  of  our  observation  above 
concerning  the  influences  of  theory  on  the  analysis  of  per- 
ception— to  provide  the  setting  for  a  new  version  of  the 
correspondence  theory  of  truth.  For  Russell's  analysis  does 
not  appeal  to  introspection,  nor  is  it  even  based  on  current 
psychological  theory.  Its  motive  appears  to  have  been  to 
provide,  first,  a  fact-complex  aR  b  by  the  correspondence  to 
which  the  proposition  "  that  a  is  in  relation  R  to  b  "  may 
be  true,  and,  next,  an  infallible  way  of  knowing  the  fact  in 

1  Some  Judgments  of  Perception,  in  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian 
Society  for  1918-19,  p.  6.     From  the  point  of  view  of  these  essays 
the  correct  analysis  of  the  situation  posited  by  Moore  would  be  this : 
I  see  something  which  from  its  look  I  identify  as  a  sheep  but  which, 
on  closer  inspection,  I  identify  as  a  pig.    Of  course,  I  may  be  cautious 
and  say,  "  That  looks  like  a  sheep  but  may  be  something  else " ;  but 
no  one  will  deny  that  there  are  cases  where,  without  any  misgivings, 
but  with  the  utmost  confidence,  we  judge  things  from  what  we  see 
of  them,  to  be  what  we  find  afterwards  they  are  not.     If  it  be  said 
that  seeing  a  pig  as  sheep  is  wrong  inference,  the  obvious  reply  is 
that  seeing  a  pig  as  a  pig  is  right  inference.     If  it  be  said  that  we 
can  speak  of  seeing  a  pig  as  a  pig  only  when  it  actually  is  one,  and 
no  mistake  is  possible,  the  reply  is  that  there  is  always  interpretation 
and   with   it  a  chance   of  error,  however   remote — unless   we  whittle 
down  what  is  perceived  to  mere  sense-data,  in  which  case  we  neither 
see  nor  know  any  "  thing  " — be  it  pig  or  sheep — at  all. 

2  Cf.  Principia  Mathematica,  p.  45. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  127 

order  that  we  may  know  when  the  proposition  is  true.  But, 
in  fact,  the  symbols  aRb  oversimplify  the  situation  and  the 
problem.  In  giving  concrete  values  to  these  symbols  in 
any  particular  case,  we  shall  unawares  assume  the  real  prob- 
lem to  have  been  solved  already,  i.e.,  the  object  to  be  cor- 
rectly perceived  for  what  it  is.  Whereas  the  real  problem 
is  when  a  perception,  involving  always,  as  it  does,  data  tran- 
scended by  interpretation,  can  be  trusted  as  correct.  And 
this  can  be  only  in  a  system  of  interpretations,  mutually 
supporting  each  other.1  It  is  precisely  because  this  attempt^ 
to  distinguish  perception  and  judgment  traverses  the  dis- 
tinction between  datum  and  interpretation  that  it  finds, 
we  may  bluntly  say,  no  support  in  the  actual  facts. 

(2)  Having  tried  to  show  that  pure  perception  is  a  will- 
o'-the-wisp  which  it  is  unsafe  to  follow,  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  appreciate  critically  the  way  in  which  the  problem 
of  datum  and  interpretation  is  raised  in  the  very  subtle  and 
acute  analysis  of  some  judgments  of  perception,  given  by 
G.  E.  Moore  in  the  article  from  which  we  have  just  quoted. 
At  the  risk  of  slurring  over  some  of  Moore's  cautious  quali- 
fications of  statement,  we  may  summarise  the  substance  of 
his  theory  as  follows: 

(a)  Let  us  assume  that  we  are  perceiving  an  inkstand  and 
judging,  "  This  is  an  inkstand."  What  factors  are  involved? 
Clearly,  we  are  not  perceiving  the  whole  of  the  inkstand. 
Very  rarely,  if  ever,  do  we  perceive  the  whole  of  the  object 
which  we  judge  ourselves  to  be  perceiving.  Our  judgment, 
in  such  cases,  is  on  the  one  hand  about  "  this  " — the  datum, 
the  item  in  the  total  field  of  presentation  at  the  moment, 
about  which,  as  distinct  from  every  other  simultaneous 
datum,  the  judgment  is  being  made.  On  the  other  hand, 

1A  fuller  treatment  of  this  point,  with  special  reference  to  per- 
ception, is  planned  for  the  second  volume  of  Studies. 


128  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

the  judgment  is  also  about  the  "  inkstand  "  which  we  cer- 
tainly believe  ourselves  to  be  perceiving.  Now,  whilst  the 
datum  is  thus  "  the  real  or  ultimate  subject  "  of  every  judg- 
ment of  perception,  yet,  clearly,  it  is  not,  in  general,  the 
kind  of  thing  for  which  the  predicate  term  (here  "  ink- 
stand ")  is  a  name.  The  "  this  "  may  be  a  colour,  or  a 
sound,  or  any  other  sort  of  sense-datum;  it  will  not  be  what 
we  mean  by  a  physical  or  material  thing.  If  "  this  "  is  all 
we  perceive,  then  we  are  not  perceiving  an  inkstand,  and 
the  judgment  "  this  is  an  inkstand  "  will  be  false.  Is  there 
any  line  of  analysis  open  by  which  we  can  avoid  this  con- 
clusion? 

(b)  If  "  this  "  is  all  that  is  strictly  perceived,  then  the 
whole  object  is  only  "  known  by  description  "  as  "  the  ob- 
ject which  stands  to  this  in  a  certain  relation."  What  is 
that  relation?  It  seems  plausible,  especially  in  examples 
drawn  from  sight,  to  say  that  "  this  "  is  a  part  of  the  object, 
e.g.,  a  part  of  its  surface.  In  that  case,  "  This  is  an  ink- 
stand "  would  be  only  a  loose  way  of  saying,  "  This  is  part 
of  the  surface  of  an  inkstand."  1  This  analysis  would  pro- 
vide plausibly  for  the  difference  between  the  datum  and 
the  object  with  which  in  the  judgment  of  perception  it  is 
identified.  A  part  might  be  a  datum,  and  might  be  seen, 
in  a  sense  in  which  the  whole  was  neither  a  datum,  nor 
seen.  But  there  is  a  formidable  difficulty:  many  things 
are  true  of  sense-data  which  are  not  true  of  genuine  parts 
of  physical  objects.  There  are  many  occasions  when  we 
judge  that  we  are  perceiving  the  same  thing,  or  the  same 
part  of  the  same  thing.  We  do  so,  frequently,  even  when  the 
"  same "  part  has  perceptibly  changed.  But  whether  it 

1  With  temperature-,  sound-,  smell-,  taste-data,  such  language  would 
be  very  much  less  plausible,  though  Moore  does  not  touch  on  this. 
At  any  rate,  we  could  speak  of  a  "  part "  here  only  in  a  metaphorical 
sense.  "  Aspect  ",  "  quality  ",  "  appearance  "  would  be  less  awkward, 
but  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  there  is  no  device  of  language  by  which 
it  is  possible  to  dodge  the  problem  which  Moore  raises  about  "part". 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  129 

has  perceptibly  changed  or  not,  the  data  involved  on  these 
different  occasions  always  are  perceptibly  different.  When 
we  look,  e.g.,  at  the  "  same  "  inkstand  from  different  dis- 
tances, or  from  different  angles  of  perspective,  or  when 
we  perceive  it  by  touch  rather  than  by  sight,  the  sense- 
data  differ  perceptibly  throughout,  yet  we  do  not  judge  the 
inkstand  to  have  perceptibly  changed.1  Hence  the  sense- 
datum  cannot  be,  or  truly  be  judged  to  be,  "  part "  of  the 
object  perceived.  In  fact,  in  so  far  as  it  is  true  that  we 
perceive  a  part,  not  the  whole,  of  the  inkstand,  that  part, 
once  more,  will  be  known  only  by  description  as  the  part 
which  stands  in  the  sought-for  relation  to  "  this  ". 

(c)  The  situation  at  this  point  drives  Moore  to  the 
desperate  expedient  of  suggesting  that  sense-data,  after 
all,  may  not  really  differ  perceptibly  but  only  seem  to  dif- 
fer. "  What  now  seems  to  me  to  be  possible  is  that  the 
sense-datum  which  corresponds  to  a  tree,  which  I  am  seeing, 
when  I  am  a  mile  off,  may  not  really  be  perceived  to  be 
smaller  than  the  one,  which  corresponds  to  the  same  tree, 
when  I  see  it  from  a  distance  of  only  a  hundred  yards,  but 
that  it  is  only  perceived  to  seem  smaller;  that  the  sense- 
datum  which  corresponds  to  a  penny,  which  I  am  seeing 
obliquely,  is  not  really  perceived  to  be  different  in  shape 
from  that  which  corresponded  to  the  penny,  when  I  was 
straight  in  front  of  it,  but  is  only  perceived  to  seem  dif- 
ferent— that  all  that  is  perceived  is  that  the  one  seems  el- 
liptical and  the  other  circular;  that  the  sense-datum  pre- 
sented to  me  when  I  have  the  blue  spectacles  on  is  not  per- 
ceived to  be  different  in  colour  from  the  one  presented  to 
me  when  I  have  not,  but  only  to  seem  so;  and  finally  that 
the  sense-datum  presented  when  I  touch  this  finger  is  not 


\A  reference  to  a  similar  argument  in  Professor  G.  F.  Stout's 
British  Academy  paper  on  Things  and  Sensations  may  here  be  in 
place.  See  Proceedings,  1905-06. 


130  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

perceived  to  be  different  in  any  way  from  that  presented 
when  I  see  it,  but  only  to  seem  so — that  I  do  not  perceive 
the  one  to  be  coloured  and  the  other  not  to  be  so,  but 
only  that  the  one  seems  coloured  and  the  other  not."  1 
If  this  suggestion  held  good,  it  would  be  possible  to 
interpret  a  datum  (a  "  this  ")  as  a  part  of  the  physical 
thing. 

(d)  But  if  we  hold  to  the  usual  view  that  sense-data 
really  differ,  their  relation  to  physical  things  is  still  to  be 
discovered.  Moore  considers  two  possible  theories,  only  to 
discard  them  both.  One  is  the  causal  theory,  that  the  sense- 
datum  has  one,  and  only  one  cause,  viz.,  the  physical  thing. 
The  other  is  the  theory  that  the  sought-for  relation  might 
be  an  ultimate  and  indefinable  one,  "  being  a  manifesta- 
tion of ".  The  causal  theory  Moore  rejects  as,  on  the 
whole,  improbable;  the  other,  on  the  ground  that  no  such 
relation  is  actually  experienced.  Perhaps,  then,  the  analysis 
into  sense-datum,  object,  and  a  relation  between  them 
is  at  fault?  If  so,  the  Mill- Russell  theory  of  a  physical 
thing  as  a  complex  of  actual  or  possible  sense-data, 
none  of  which  is  itself  a  physical  thing,  seems  the  only 
well-accredited  alternative,  unless  we  are  to  fall  back, 
after  all,  on  the  desperate  expedient  discussed  under  (c) 
above.  Not  being  convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  Mill-Russell 
theory,  and  confessing  himself  otherwise  completely  puzzled, 
Moore  finally  inclines  to  favour  this  desperate  view,  because 
at  least  it  allows  the  sense-datum  to  be  regarded  as  really 
identical  with  part  of  the  object. 

The  essential  problem  could  hardly  have  been  put  with 
more  startling  clearness.  Judgments  like  "  this  is  an  ink- 
stand "  or  "  I  see  (this  to  be)  an  inkstand ",  express 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  23.  I  can,  frankly,  make  nothing  of  this  suggestion. 
In  offering  it  Moore  himself  admits  it  to  be  possible  that  he  is  "  talking 
sheer  nonsense  ". 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  »  131 

straightforwardly  and,  normally,  with  undeniable  truth — 
what?  What  we  perceive,  or — does  it  not  amount  to  the 
same  thing? — what  we  judge  that  to  be  which  we  perceive. 
Yet  the  audacity  of  this  judgment  is  brought  to  light  by  the 
analysis  which  whittles  down  what  we  strictly  perceive  to 
the  mere  "  this  "  here  and  now,  so  that  we  are  judging 
more  to  be  real  than,  in  fact,  we  do  perceive.  Yet  the 
paradox  is  that  we  do  not  stop  at  mere  data,  and  that  it 
would  not  help  us  if  we  did.  For  the  road  to  knowledge 
lies  precisely  in  expanding  this  "  more  " — in  making  a 
whole  universe,  in  the  last  resort,  hang  upon  each  moment's 
data.  Certainly  we  perceive  "  things  "  only  by  interpreting 
data  to  mean  wholes  which,  as  wholes,  are  not  data.  Is 
there  any  way  of  throwing  further  light  on  this  mystery 
of  transcendence? 

The  first  step  on  such  a  way  is  to  recognise  that  every 
datum  is  a  this-such — an  Aristotelian  rods  roiovSe—  hence 
a  realised,  or  embodied,  universal.  It  is  emphatically  this, 
and  no  other,  and  so  far  a  "  particular  ".  But  it  has  also 
a  nature,  quality,  character — a  "  what  " — which  is  not  con- 
fined to  "  this  "  but  appears  in  other  particulars;  not  only  in 
particulars  similar  to  this  one,  or  of  the  same  sort,  but  also 
in  particulars  different  from  this  one,  yet  recognisable  as 
aspects  of  the  same  higher  unity  as  this  one.  Transcend- 
ence, in  short,  is  the  function  of  universals.  We  may  mar- 
vel at  it  and  find  it  unintelligible — but  it  can  be  so  only 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  may  be  said  to  be  unintelligible  that 
there  is  anything  at  all.  We  must  not  only  accept  univers- 
als as  embodied  in  particulars  and  yet  transcending  each, 
but  recognise  that  they  are  the  condition  of  the  intelligibil- 
ity of  anything  whatsoever.  Knowledge  consists  in  the 
progressive  and  constructive  discovery  of  the  universals — 
of  all  sorts  and  degrees — which  are  embodied  in  the  data 
of  our  experience.  Thought,  intelligence — call  it  what  we 


132  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

will — are  the  response  to,  or  acknowledgment  of,  universals, 
or,  as  we  may  also  put  it,  of  the  same  in  the  different — 
a  response  made  possible,  indeed  exacted,  by  the  fact  that 
the  flux  of  experience  brings  an  ever  fresh  multiplicity  of 
data  from  moment  to  moment.  The  discovery  of  universals 
here  takes  place  through  the  ordering,  organising,  synthes- 
ising — again  call  it  what  we  will — of  data.  And  these  terms 
describe  an  activity  which  is,  so  far  as  it  is  "  logical "  or 
"  rational  ",  under  the  control,  the  "  objective  "  control,  of 
the  universals  embodied  in  the  data.  We  are  obliged  to 
think  as  we  do  think,  when  we  think  truly.  There  is  noth- 
ing capricious  or  arbitrary  about  this  logical  activity.  Still 
less  is  it  an  imposition,  upon  a  neutral  mass  of  data,  of 
principles  of  order  invented  or  imagined  by  human  minds, 
or  given  with  them  as  their  habitual  ways  of  working.  We 
are  not  dealing  with  the  tricks  of  an  animal  species,  but 

'with  the  nature  of  the  world  revealing  itself  to  us.  In 
thinking,  it  is  not  we  who  operate  on  the  world,  but  the 

i  world  (i.e.,  the  system  of  universals  concretely  presented  in 
data)  which  operates  in  us — subject,  of  course,  to  the  limita- 
tion which  Spinoza  expresses  in  the  words  natura  quatenus 
humanam  mentem  constituit.  Though  it  strains  language, 
it  would  be  truer  to  say,  that  the  world  thinks  in  us  than 
that  "  we  "  think  it,  or  about  it.  Least  objectionable,  per- 
haps, is  the  formula:  reality  reveals  itself  in  what,  on  the 

•  basis  of  perception  and  feeling,  we  are  obliged  to  think  it 
to  be. 

The  problem,  thus,  of  "  transcendence "  is  solved   (so 
far  as  we  can  speak  of  "  solving  "  it  at  all)  by  recognising 

,that  data  are  particularised  universals,  that  it  is  of  the  na- 
ture of  universals  to  transcend  any  one  particular,  and 
that  this  power  of  universals  is  exhibited  in  what  we  call 
"  our  activity  "  of  thinking,  when,  with  the  help  of  memory 
and  "  association  of  ideas  ",  we  identify  different  data  as  in- 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  133 

dividual 1  things,  or  as  higher  types  of  concrete  unities. 
The  reminder  will  hardly  be  required  that  language,  so  far 
as  it  does  not  consist  of  symbols  for  mere  denoting  or  point- 
ing,2 consists  of  symbols  for  universals  of  various  sorts. 
Being,  by  common  consent,  the  instrument  for  the  expres- 
sion and  fixation,  even  more  than  for  the  communication, 
of  thought,  language  surely  bears  witness  to  the  universals 
which  judgment  predicates  of  the  given  as  its  true  nature. 
In  keeping  with  this  general  view,  we  may  now  reaffirm 
the  position  adopted  above  that  "  seeing  is  believing  ",  or, 
in  other  words,  that  the  perceptions  which  guide  us  in  ac- 
tion and  enter  as  "  observations  "  into  scientific  research  are 
judgments.  It  is  certainly  only  on  this  view  that  we  can 
plausibly  be  said  to  perceive  physical  "  things  "  or  a  phys- 
ical "  world  ". 

In  truth,  the  so-called  "  facts  "  of  perception  are  "  theor- 
ies ".  This  follows  at  once  from  the  admission  that  intel- 
ligent perception  is  a  species  of  judgment,  and  involves 
interpretation  of  data  by  identification  with  a  universal, 

1  It  should  be  noted  carefully  that  the  term   "  particular "  in  the 
above  account  refers  only  to  what  may  also  be  called  a  datum,  or  a 
"  this ".     It   does  not  refer   to   "  things "   or  to   anything  which   can 
be  called  an  identity  in  differences.     On  the  other  hand,  an   "  indi- 
vidual ",  being  an   identity  in  differences,   is  a  kind  of  universal — a 
"  concrete "  universal,  though  it  must  be  remembered  that  there  are 
degrees    of    individuality.      It    would    assist   present-day    philosophical 
discussion  if  it  were  to  be  authoritatively  settled  what  is  the  position 
of  the  "  simple  "  and  unanalysable  "  terms  ",  which  a  modern   fashion 
in  logical  theory  hails  as  the  ultimate  constituents  of  the  world,  in 
respect  of  the  distinction  of  particular  and  universal. 

2  Whether  a  symbol  merely  denotes,  and  what  it  denotes,  can  be 
determined  only  by  its  use,  i.e.,  in  the  context  of  an  actual  application. 
The  "values"  for  the  "variables"  of  Russell's  logic  are,  I  understand, 
to  consist  in  the  last  resort  of  entities  merely  denotable  each  by  its 
"proper  name"   (Cf.,  e.g.,  Introduction  to  Mathematical  Philosophy, 
p.    182).     These   entities,   it   may   be   observed,   will   not  be   physical 
things,   or   persons,   or   other   complex   objects,   such   as   in   our   un- 
philosophical    language    may   have    proper   names,    but    will    probably, 
when  Russell  comes  to  exhibiting  them,  be  found  to  be  "  particulars " 
such  as  sense-data :  this,  and  this,  and  this.     And  then  it  will  be  time 
to  repeat  the  question  raised  at  the  end  of  the  preceding  note. 


134  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

with  which  we  have  become  acquainted  also  in  other  data 
on  other  occasions.  Incidentally,  it  follows  that  sense-data, 
though  facts  in  the  sense  that  here  and  now  they  occur, 
are  not  the  fact  which  is  known  or  affirmed.  They  are 
evidence,  and  circumstantial  evidence  at  that,  for  the  fact. 
Experience  of  illusion  soon  brings  home  to  us  the  inferential 
character  of  perception,  just  as  do  the  not  infrequent  oc- 
casions when  we  have  to  support  our  judgments  of  per- 
ception, like  our  judgments  of  memory,  by  argument,  as 
well  as  by  more  attentive  observation,  or  additional  sense- 
data  which  furnish  corroborative  circumstantial  evidence.1 
The  current  distinction  between  "  fact  "  and  "  theory  " 
arises  from  this,  that  there  are  obvious  stages,  or  degrees, 
of  interpretation  within  what  would  commonly  still  be 
called  a  judgment  of  perception,  the  subject  being  denoted 
by  "  this  ".  Keeping  to  judgments  expressed  in  language, 
there  is  clearly  an  advance  from  "  this  is  brown  "  to  "  this 
is  a  table  ",  and  to  "  this  table  is  brown  ".  Though  we 
should  still  be  said  to  perceive  what  is  asserted  in  the  last 
judgment,  we  certainly  know  much  more  in  the  last  judg- 
ment than  we  do  in  the  first.  For,  if  the  first  is  taken  to 
express,  bona  fide,  the  degree  of  knowledge  supplied  by 
merely  seeing  a  brown  (something),  without  any  recognition 
of  the  kind  of  thing  it  is,  the  progress  to  "  this  is  a  (brown) 
table  "  is  undeniable.  The  difference  is,  perhaps,  most  fre- 
quently experienced  with  unfamiliar  noises.  To  hear  a 
novel  noise  and  to  appreciate  its  peculiar  sound-quality  is 
rather  sharply  marked  off  from  learning  of  what  thing  it  is 
the  noise.2  The  inferential  transition  or  synthesis  is  here 
most  marked. 

1  See  B.  Bosanquet,  Logic  (2nd  edit.),  vol.  ii,  pp.  16,  7. 

2  Incidentally,  it  may  be  observed  that,  even  in  current  speech,  the 
sound-qualities  of  things  are  nearest  to  being  treated  as  effects.     We 
pass  from  a  noise,  not  so  much  to  a  noisy  thing,  as  to  the  thing  which 
"  makes  "  the  noise,  though  we  still  speak  of  "  hearing  a  lark  ",  etc. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES "  135 

Whatever  may  be  the  details  of  such  expansion  of 
knowledge  within  what  is  still "  perception  ",  according  to  the 
current  meaning  of  the  term,  and  whatever  account  we  may 
give  of  it  in  terms  of  "  acquisition  of  meaning  ",  "  associa- 
tion of  ideas  ",  "  learning  by  experience  ",  etc.,  the  funda- 
mental point  remains  unaffected  that  all  these  processes  ar<* 
possible  only  because  of  the  universals  which,  in  supplying 
logical,  or  objective,  control,  at  the  same  time  become  them- 
selves explicit  and  articulate.  What  is  called  the  "  logic 
of  the  facts  "  is  the  logic  of  the  universals  which  we  learn 
to  recognise  as  the  true  nature  of  the  data  in  which  they 
are  realised. 

It  is  worth  adding,  that  the  recognition  of  degrees  of 
knowledge  within  perception  supplies  an  additional  argu- 
ment against  the  infallibility  of  perception.  The  more  there 
is  of  meaning  in  a  perception,  the  more  its  truth  will  depend 
on  matters  falling  outside  the  moment's  "  this  ".  And  on 
the  attempts  to  save  the  theory  by  eliminating  meaning  we 
have  definitely  turned  our  backs.  To  eliminate  meaning  is 
to  refuse  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  principle  of  identity  in 
difference.  Is  it  from  a  fear  that  this  intellectual  adven- 
ture may  end  in  the  absolute? 

(3)  We  must  turn  to  our  last  problem,  whether  we  have 
exhausted  all  the  clues  which  perception  furnishes  for  re- 
cognising and  discriminating  "  individual  "  things. 

The  view  that  a  thing  is  a  class  of  actual  and  possible 
sense-data  reminds  us,  correctly  enough,  that  we  know  any 
"  thing  "  by  a  synthesis  of  actual  and  remembered  sense- 
data,  in  which  the  gaps  are  filled  out  on  principles  of  con- 
tinuity and  correlation.  But,  quite  apart  from  the  awkward 

The  reason  is  obviously  that  the  occurrence  of  noises  is  conditioned, 
as  a  rule,  by  visible  movements  or  activities  of  the  thing  which  makes 
the  noise.  Cf.  the  dependence  of  speech-sounds  on  movements  of  the 
speech-organs. 


136  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

fact  that  the  author  of  this  view  now  regards  a  "  class  "  as 
a  "  logical  fiction  ",l  this  view  fails  to  do  justice  to  the 
character  of  individuality  which  things  possess  and  which 
we — why  shrink  from  saying  it? — perceive  in  them.     At 
least,  there  is  the  striking  fact  that  the  objects  which  we 
most  commonly  and  readily  recognise  as  "  things  "  belong 
to  three  main  classes,  viz.,  (i)  organisms  of  all  kinds;  (2) 
artefacts  of  all  kinds;  (3)  objects  which  are  neither  organ- 
isms nor  artefacts  but,  like  mountains,  or  rivers,  possess 
an  aesthetic  unity  and  individuality.2    Now,  in  part,  this 
individuality  is  perceived,  especially  by  the  eye,  in  a  certain 
characteristic  jorm   or   structure,  which   the   analysis   of 
things  into  assemblages  of  actual  and  possible  sense-data 
has,  so  far,  completely  ignored.    It  would  not  be  a  relevant 
reply  to  say  that  every  sense-datum,  e.g.,  a  colour-patch,  has 
its  "  form  ",  i.e.,  definite  boundary  lines.     The  important 
point  is  that  in  and  through  the  colour-patches  which  we 
perceive  as  a  thing,  and  which  may  change  in  outline  with 
the  movements  of  the  thing,  we  recognise  a  characteristic 
shape  and  structure,  which  we  learn  to  analyse  into  a  dis- 
tinctive proportion  and  balance  of  parts  within  a  whole. 
And,  thence,  further  analysis  will  take  us,  on  the  one  hand, 
by  way  of  measurement,  into  the  quantitative  formulae  for 
the  proportions,  e.g.,  of  size  and  weight,  and,  on  the  other, 
into  the  function  or  purpose  which  these  parts  in  just  these 
proportions  fulfil,  either  relatively  to  each  other  (e.g.,  in- 
ternal proportions  within  a  tool  or  organism),  or  relatively 
to  other  things  (e.g.,  adaptation  of  organism  to  environment, 
of  tool  to  human  need).    Dr.  Bosanquet  may  exaggerate 

1  Bertrand  Russell,  Introduction  to  Mathematical  Philosophy,  chs.  xiii 
and  xvii. 

2  Our  habit  of  giving  proper  names  to  such  natural  objects  is  surely 
significant  here.  On  the  whole  subject  of  the  individuality  of  things 
there  are  some  incidental  remarks  in  Dr.  Bosanquet's  Logic  (2nd  ed.), 
vol.  i,  pp.  129,  218,  which  are,  unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  too  com- 
monly overlooked  by  students  of  philosophy. 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES "  137 

in  suggesting  that,  but  for  our  familiarity  with  the  embodi- 
ment of  our  purposes  in  tools  made  by  ourselves,  we  should 
not  find  it  so  easy  as  we  do  to  recognise  "  things  "/  The 
individuality,  at  any  rate,  of  living  things  is  likely  to  have 
struck  men  long  before  they  had  made  much  advance  in 
the  making  of  tools.  But  the  main  point  is,  surely,  sound: 
"  It  is  by  acquaintance  with  the  perceptible  character  im- 
pressed by  ...  proportions  .  .  .  that  we  readily  pro- 
nounce on  the  use  of  objects  made  by  the  hand  of  man, 
and  that  we  detect,  somewhat  less  readily,  the  actual  pur- 
pose served  by  adaptations  in  the  organic  world.  Such  at- 
tributes as  are  expressed  in  these  proportions  form,  for 
perception,  the  content  of  individualities  ".2 

The  character  of  individuality,  then,  is  conveyed  at  the 
very  least  in  the  perceptible  proportions  and  arrangements 
of  che  parts  of  a  thing — or,  in  other  words,  in  its  structure, 
form,  organisation.  This,  clearly,  is  something  more  than 
is  fairly  conveyed  by  terms  like  assemblage  or  conjunction 
of  sense-data,  even  when  these  terms  are  applied  to  a  com- 
plex of  sense-data  presented  together.  It  is  something 
more  than,  and  by  attentive  analysis  distinguishable  from, 
the  sense-data,  yet  it  is  given  in  them  as  their  arrangement, 
and  is  perceived  just  as  they  are.  But  the  most  interesting 
point  of  the  whole  theory  is  that,  whilst  the  arrangement,  in 
detail  and  as  a  whole,  is,  and  must  always  be,  capable  of 
a  causal  explanation,  by  laws  formulating  its  correlation 
with  its  conditions,  yet  it  challenges  also  an  interpretation 
of  that  other  sort  for  which  "  purpose  "  or  "  purposive- 
ness  "  are  the  only  convenient  terms.  The  proportions  of 
the  parts  and  their  qualities — and  in  the  economy  of  nature 
this  is  true  equally  of  primary  qualities  such  as  size,  weight, 
resistance,  and  of  secondary  qualities,  such  as  the  coloura- 
tion of  animals  and  flowers,  their  smell,  their  sound — 

lLoc.  cit.,  p.  218.  zLoc.  cit.,  p.  129. 


138  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

demand  explanation  in  terms  of  "  function  "  and  "  use  ". 
Yet  this  teleological  character  of  things,  in  structure  and 
behaviour,  raises  tantalising  problems. 

With  tools  of  our  own  making,  we  know  what  purpose 
they  are  intended  to  serve,  and  can  explain  why,  in  order 
to  serve  that  purpose,  they  had  to  be  endowed  with  the 
structure  and  qualities  they  possess,  though  it  ought  not  to 
be  ignored  that  natural  materials,  by  their  "  given  "  quali- 
ties, partly  lend  themselves  to  our  purposes,  partly  handicap 
us,  or  at  least  impose  severe  conditions  on  the  way  in  which, 
and  the  extent  to  which,  they  are  usable.  But  when  we  pass 
to  organisms,  the  application  of  the  concept  of  purpose  be- 
comes difficult  and  precarious.  The  functions  of  an  organ 
are  generally  easily  enough  traced,  though  even  here  we 
may  run  up  against  riddles,  which  may  extend  through  the 
whole  economy  of  an  organism's  existence,  especially  when 
research  brings  to  light,  e.g.,  microscopic  structures  or 
chemical  processes  unknown  to  ordinary  perception.  But 
the  chief  difficulty  is  that  organisms  as  wholes  seem  to  have 
no  obvious  or  necessary  function  except  that  of  being  just 
themselves  and  fulfilling  the  routine  cycle  of  their  existence. 
And  even  then,  though  conscious  intention  or  purpose  may 
sometimes,  as  in  men,  play  a  part,  we  cannot,  in  general, 
say,  on  obvious  evidence,  that  every  natural  organism  is 
what  it  is,  grows  as  it  grows,  behaves  as  it  behaves,  because 
of  its  own  conscious  purpose  to  be,  grow,  behave  just  so. 
No  human  being  is  the  designer  of  his  own  body:  a  fortiori, 
no  animals  or  plants  are.  And  there  is  still  less  empirical 
warrant  for  saying  that  Nature,  as  master-artist,  designed 
the  tout  ensemble,  and  fitted  each  thing  into  its  place  in  the 
general  plan.  Yet  teleological  categories  will  not  let  them- 
selves be  ousted.  Structure  and  function,  being  frequently 
still  perceptible  in  whatever  sense  "  things  "  are  perceptible, 
connect  teleological  categories  directly  with  sense-data  and 
give  them  a  place  in  the  interpretation  of  sense-data.  At 


Ch.  V]  "  SAVING  THE  APPEARANCES  "  139 

the  same  time,  through  their  suggestion  of  purpose  they  are 
also  connected  both  with  "  consciousness "  and  with 
"  value  ",  and  thus  introduce  us  to  an  order  of  appearances 
requiring  to  be  saved  even  more  urgently  for  not  being  any 
longer  so  directly  sustained  by  sense-data. 

Note  on  John  Locke's  Distinction  of  Primary  and  Secondary 

Qualities 

It  is  of  interest  in  connection  with  the  first  half  of  the  preced- 
ing essay,  to  analyse  in  detail  Locke's  argument  for  the  distinction 
of  primary  and  secondary  qualities,  because  there  is  hardly  a 
point  in  the  prolonged  subsequent  discussion  of  the  problem, 
which  Locke  has  not  anticipated,  however  briefly.  From  the  very 
start  of  his  argument  Locke  takes  for  granted  the  psycho-physio- 
logical causation  of  "  ideas  "  in  our  minds,  by  the  "  impulse  ", 
or  "  motion  "  which  bodies  impart  to  our  sense-organs,  and  which 
"  our  nerves  or  animal  spirits  "  carry  to  the  brain  or  "  seat  of 
sensation  ",  there  to  produce  the  ideas  we  have.  He  takes  for 
granted,  also,  the  physical  theory  that  bodies  consist  of  "  insen- 
sible particles  "  of  matter,  each  having  its  figure,  bulk,  solidity, 
motion.  These  are  "  primary  "  qualities  because  (a)  they  are 
constantly  found  "  in  every  particle  of  matter  which  has  bulk 
enough  to  be  perceived";  (b)  even  if  we  imagine  particles  so 
small  as  to  be  utterly  imperceptible,  we  must  still  endow  them 
with  all  these  qualities,  for  matter  is  inconceivable  without  them; 
(c)  they  are  necessary  to  the  action  of  one  body  on  another,  and, 
therefore,  to  the  production  of  ideas  in  our  minds;  (d)  they  are 
real  qualities  in  that  they  are  really  in  bodies,  "  whether  any  one's 
senses  perceive  them  or  no  ";  (e)  primaries  are  free  from  contra- 
diction: a  figure  is  never  perceived  as  other  than  it  is.  The  ideas 
of  themselves  which  primary  qualities  produce  in  us  are  "  resem- 
blances "  of  the  "  patterns  "  which  "  do  really  exist  in  the  bodies 
themselves  ".  On  the  other  hand,  the  secondary  qualities  "  in 
truth  are  nothing  in  the  objects  themselves,  but  powers  to  pro- 
duce various  sensations  in  us  by  their  primary  qualities."  The 
colour  and  scent  of  a  violet  are  but  the  effects  in  us  of  the  bulk, 
figure,  texture,  and  motion  of  the  insensible  parts  of  which  the 
violet,  as  a  material  thing,  is  composed.  Why  is  it  a  "  mistake  " 
to  attribute  "  reality  "  to  secondaries,  as  we  commonly  do?  (a) 


HO  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.V 

Because  bodies  produce  in  us  sensations  of  whiteness  or  sweet- 
ness just  as  they  produce  the  sensations  of  pain  or  of  sickness. 
Why  attribute  warmth  to  the  fire,  but  not  pain?     Why  sweet- 
ness to  manna,  but  not  the  sickness  of  which  it  is  in  the  same 
way  the  cause?     (b)  Because,  "  Take  away  the  sensations  of 
them;  let  not  the  eyes  see  light  or  colours,  nor  the  ears  hear 
sounds;  let  the  palate  not  taste,  nor  the  nose  smell;   and  all 
colours,  tastes,  odours,  and  sounds,  as  they  are  such  particular 
ideas,  vanish  and  cease,  and  are  reduced  to  their  causes,  i.e.,  bulk, 
figure,  and  motion  of  parts  ".    (c)  Because,  if  pain  does  not  exist 
when  it  is  not  felt,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  sweetness 
exists  when  it  is  not  tasted,  or  colour  when  it  is  not  seen,     (d) 
Because  secondary  qualities  are  variable  with  physical  condi- 
tions: "  Can  any  one  think  any  real  alterations  are  made  in  the 
porphyry  by  the  presence  or  absence  of  light,  and  that  those  ideas 
of  whiteness  and  redness  are  really  in  porphyry  in  the  light, 
when  it  is  plain  that  it  has  no  colour  in  the  dark?  "    (e)  Because 
secondary  qualities  are  often  mutually  contradictory:  "  The  same 
water,  at  the  same  time,  may  produce  the  idea  of  cold  by  one 
hand,  and  of  heat  by  the  other;  whereas  it  is  impossible  that  the 
same  water,  if  those  ideas  were  really  in  it,  should  at  the  same 
time  be  both  hot  and  cold."     Locke  fairly  boxes  the  compass 
collecting  premises  for  the  conclusion  he  is  bent  on  reaching. 
Yet  most  of  his  arguments,  taken  singly,  each  on  its  merits,  are 
open  to  criticism,  and,  taken  together,  they  are  irrelevant  to  one 
another.    For  example,  the  arguments  against  the  reality  of  sec- 
ondaries, drawn  from  their  relativity  and  mutual  incompatibility, 
not  only  lend  no  support  to  his  account  of  the  causation  of 
perceptions,  but  since,  on  Locke's  own  showing,  all  our  knowledge 
of  things  is  derived  from  sensations,  make  the  very  possibility 
of  formulating  such  a  causal  theory  unintelligible.     The  most 
curious  point  is,  I  think,  the  assimilation  of  colour  and  taste 
to  sickness   and  pain  as   effects   in  us,   not   real   qualities   in 
things.     The  corresponding  assimilation  of  "  the  stomach  and 
guts  "  to  the  "  eyes  and  palate  "  teaches  one  to  appreciate  the 
greater  subtlety  and  psychological  accuracy  with  which  Berkeley 
has  restated  the  pain-argument  in  his  Dialogues.    Modern  writers, 
like  Broad,  Russell,  and  others,  have  done  well  to  separate  the 
relativity   arguments    from   the    causal    theory    in   its   psycho- 
physiological  form. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM:   A  STUDY  IN  THE  ORDER  OF 

NATURE 

THE  problem  of  mechanism  and  vitalism  may  be  regarded 
as  single,  but  it  is  certainly  far  from  simple.  Recent  dis- 
cussion *  has  shown  it  to  be  the  meeting-point  of  a  veritable 
maze  of  questions,  touching  experimental  facts  on  one  side 
and  logical  principles  on  the  other.  What  is  meant  by 
"  mechanism  "?  What  are  the  limits,  if  any,  of  a  me- 
chanistic explanation  of  natural  phenomena?  How  many 
different  types  of  theory  sail  under  the  common  name  of 
"  vitalism  "?  Do  living  beings  in  their  structure,  growth, 
behaviour,  exhibit  features  incapable  of  being  explained  in 
physico-chemical  terms?  If  so,  must  we  refer  them  to  a 

1  It  is,  surely,  no  mere  coincidence,  but  a  symptom  of  the  trend  of 
contemporary  thought,  and  especially  of  the  way  in  which  science  and 
philosophy  react  upon  each  other,  that  during  1918  the  Aristotelian 
Society  of  London  and  the  American  Philosophical  Association 
arranged,  independently  of  each  other,  discussions  on  the  topic  of 
mechanism  versus  vitalism,  and  that  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic 
scientists  and  philosophers  co-operated  in  these  attempts  to  compare 
their  theories  and  points  of  view,  and,  if  possible,  make  them  meet. 
To  the  "  Symposium "  of  the  Aristotelian  Society  on  the  question, 
"Are  Physical.  Biological  and  Psychological  Categories  Irreducible?", 
there  contributed  J.  S.  Haldane,  D'Arcy  W.  Thompson,  P.  Chalmers 
Mitchell,  and  L.  T.  Hobhouse.  Their  papers  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  1917-18  (N.  S.,  vol.  xviii)  ;  they  have 
also  been  republished  by  Dr.  Wildon  Carr  in  Life  and  Finite  Individ- 
uality (London:  Williams  and  Norgate).  The  leaders  of  the  discus- 
sion of  the  American  Philosophical  Association  were  L.  J.  Henderson 
(Harvard),  H.  S.  Jennings  (Johns  Hopkins),  H.  C.  Warren  (Prince- 
ton), W.  T.  Marvin  (Rutgers  College),  and  myself.  The  present 
essay  is  a  reprint,  with  a  few  verbal  changes,  of  my  contribution 
to  the  discussion,  as  originally  published  together  with  the  papers 
of  the  other  four  leaders,  in  the  Philosophical  Review  (vol.  xxvii, 
No.  6,  pp.  628-645).  A  select  bibliography,  compiled  in  connection 
with  the  discussion,  will  be  found  in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy, 
Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods  (vol.  xv.,  no.  20,  Sept.  1918). 

141 


i42  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  VI 

special  vital  force?  What  is  the  nature  of  this  force?  What 
is  its  mode  of  operation?  Can  any  theory  on  this  point 
be  tested  and  verified  by  experiment?  If  not,  is  such  a  vital 
force  anything  more  than  a  fiction,  at  least  for  a  science 
which  seeks  to  be  strictly  empirical?  Yet,  without  such  a 
factor,  is  there  any  way  of  accounting  for  the  difference  be- 
tween the  living  and  the  non-living?  What,  again,  is  the 
relation  of  biology  to  physics  and  chemistry?  Is  it  a  de- 
partment of  these  latter  sciences,  or  is  it  autonomous,  with 
a  field  of  facts  and  with  characteristic  concepts  of  its  own? 
Suppose  we  decide  for  its  autonomy,  how  does  this  affect 
the  ideal  of  a  unified  theory  of  nature?  Does  this  ideal 
commit  us  to  seeking  the  explanation  of  all  facts  in  terms  of 
the  smallest  possible  number  of  concepts?  And  should 
these  concepts  be  taken  exclusively  from  the  physical 
sciences? 

These  and  similar  questions  have  been  interwoven  in  the 
recent  literature  of  our  topic.  They  are  obviously  closely 
connected  with  one  another,  yet  no  less  obviously  a  discus- 
sion of  each  of  them  on  its  merits  requires  an  expertness  in 
so  many  different  fields  of  knowledge,  that  hardly  any  single 
thinker  nowadays  can  hope  to  handle  with  equal  compe- 
tence all  sides  of  the  problem.  The  best  results,  now  as 
in  the  past,  may  be  expected  from  the  sympathetic  coopera- 
tion of  scientists  and  philosophers.  For  we  ought  not  to 
forget  that  to  the  historical  development  of  mechanism  and 
vitalism  philosophers  and  scientists  have  equally  contri- 
buted. It  is  enough  to  recall,  prior  to  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, such  names  as  Aristotle,  Bacon,  Galileo,  Descartes, 
Newton,  Leibniz,  Hume,  Kant,  in  order  to  realise  that  our 
topic  has  been  one  of  the  chief  meeting-points  of  experi- 
mental research  on  the  one  side  and  philosophical  specula- 
tion on  the  other.  It  is  no  mere  accident  that  Hans  Driesch, 
in  thinking  out  his  vitalistic  theory,  found  himself  driven 


Ch.  VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  143 

into  fundamental  problems  of  logic,  and  that  the  advocate 
of  a  mechanistic  theory,  like  Loeb,  is  much  more  of  a 
"  speculative  "  philosopher  than  he  is  himself  aware  of. 

The  thesis  which  we  shall  try  to  support,  and  the  bearing 
of  which  on  some  of  the  problems  above  enumerated  we 
shall  try  to  draw  out  in  the  following  pages,  may  be  sum- 
med up  in  the  formula:  Not  mechanism  or  vitalism,  but  me- 
chanism and  teleology.  The  "  universe  of  discourse  "  of 
our  discussion  is  best  described,  in  Henderson's  happy 
phrase,  as  "The  Order  of  Nature";1  and  biology  is  our 
best  door  of  entry  into  it.  For  biology  can  hardly  avoid 
the  larger  issues  of  context  which  are  suggested  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  living  beings  in  nature,  of  organisms  built  upon 
and  growing  out  of  the  inorganic.  However  much  the 
worker  in  biology  may  seek  to  limit  himself  to  the  phe- 
nomena of  life  as  such,  to  the  problems  of  structure,  growth, 
behaviour,  without  troubling  himself  about  the  larger  ques- 
tions of  the  origin  and  status  of  life  hi  the  system  of  nature 
as  a  whole,  still  even  the  most  superficial  acquaintance  with 
biological  literature  shows  that  such  isolation  is  largely 
artificial,  and  always  on  the  point  of  breaking  down  under 
the  pressure  of  the  desire  for  fuller  knowledge.  It  breaks 
down,  first  of  all,  because,  whilst  physicist  and  chemist  can 
ignore  the  phenomena  of  life,  the  biologist  cannot  ignore  the 
phenomena  of  physics  and  chemistry.  The  living  beings 
which  he  studies,  whether  single  cells  or  multicellular  organ- 
isms, are  far  too  obviously  physico-chemical  systems.  Once 
the  breach  has  thus  been  made,  the  whole  tide  of  wider 
issues  sweeps  in.  Beginning  with  the  difference  between 
the  living  and  the  non-living,  there  comes  next  into  view 
the  problem  of  the  way  in  which  the  phenomena  of  life  are 
conditioned  by  their  occurrence  in  bodies,  i.e.,  in  physico- 

1  See  his  book  under  this  title. 


144  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

chemical  systems,  and,  again,  by  an  environment,  partly  it- 
self composed  of  living  things,  partly  non-living.  And  once 
this  point  has  been  reached,  the  "  order  of  nature  "  con- 
fronts us  as  the  context  within  which  the  other  questions 
must  find  their  answers.  Our  argument  will  seek  to  con- 
firm the  view  that  there  is  both  an  order  of  objective 
phenomena,  and  a  corresponding  order  of  the  sciences  which 
give  us  the  truth  about  these  phenomena.  It  will  thus  at- 
tempt to  do  justice  to  the  continuity  of  nature  on  the 
one  side,  and,  on  the  other  side,  to  the  broad  qualitative 
differences  which  we  find  within  it,  and  which  appear  to 
demand  an  ascending,  or,  at  least,  a  cumulative  arrange- 
ment. 

Within  this  universe  of  discourse,  then,  of  biology  ex- 
panded into  the  problem  of  the  order  of  nature,  the  formula 
"  not  mechanism  or  vitalism,  but  mechanism  and  teleology  " 
is  to  be  interpreted.  It  means  that  we  ought  to  replace 
the  disjunction  of  mechanism  and  vitalism,  as  mutually  ex- 
clusive alternatives,  by  the  conjunction  of  mechanism  and 
teleology.  It  demands  that  these  concepts  be  treated  as 
cumulative  in  the  order  of  nature,  and,  therefore,  teleology 
as  logically  dominant  over  mechanism  in  biology.  It  re- 
gards the  arguments  against  vitalism  as  decisive,  if  by 
u  vitalism  "  we  mean  the  theory  that  in  all  the  things  called 
"  living  "  there  is  present  some  non-mechanical,  non-spatial, 
semi-psychical  force  or  factor — whether  biotic  energy,  or 
entelechy,  or  elan  vital — which  yet  has  the  power  to  inter- 
fere by  way  of  regulation  or  control  with  the  physico- 
chemical  processes  in  the  body;  which  can  suspend  the 
second  law  of  thermodynamics;  which  can  select  for  real- 
isation one  of  the  physically  open  possibilities;  which  can 
create  novelties,  not  only  unpredictable  in  advance,  but  in- 
explicable after  they  have  occurred.  Vitalism  in  this  sense 
we  do  not  want  to  save,  and  this  is  the  sort  of  vitalism  be- 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  145 

tween  which  and  mechanism  the  choice  for  biology  is  usually 
said  to  lie.  But  whilst  it  is  part  of  our  thesis  to  reject  vital- 
ism on  its  merits,  it  is  also  part  of  it  to  reject  the  whole 
disjunction  of  vitalism  and  mechanism,  acceptance  of  which 
would  commit  us  to  the  affirmation  of  mechanism  by  the 
denial  of  vitalism.  It  is  here  that  the  second  half  of  our 
thesis,  "  mechanism  and  teleology  ",  comes  into  play.  This 
is  intended  to  give  full  scope  to  mechanistic  theory  to  carry 
us  as  far  as  it  can,  but  it  is  also  intended  to  maintain  that 
there  is  a  sound  sense  in  which  it  is  true  to  say,  that  the 
phenomena  of  life  cannot  be  explained,  or,  better,  formu- 
lated, in  physico-chemical  terms.  Or,  to  put  the  positive 
side  of  the  contention,  teleological  terms  are  required,  not 
as  substitutes  for  physico-chemical  terms,  but  as  fixing 
what  we  have  called  the  "  dominant "  character  of  life-pro- 
cesses to  which  their  physico-chemical  aspect  is  subsidiary. 
The  relation  is  easier  to  illustrate  than  to  put  into  words. 
We  find  it  wherever  in  nature  there  appears  a  new  stratum 
or  level,  a  new  type  of  quality,  or  of  structure.  In  the 
theory  of  colours,  e.g.,  or  of  sounds,  the  "  dominant "  con- 
cepts are  derived  from  an  analysis  of  colours  and  sounds 
themselves — colours  as  such,  or  as  actually  seen,  sounds  as 
such,  or  as  actually  heard — and  it  is  only  the  ordering  of 
these  data  in  terms  drawn  from  their  own  nature  that  gives 
relevance  to  the  subsequent  correlation  of  colour-differences 
or  sound-differences  with  differences  in  the  rate  of  vibration 
of  some  elastic  medium.  So,  again,  the  dominant  concepts 
of  chemistry  are  patently  derived  from  a  study  of  the  pro- 
perties and  states  of  elements  and  compounds  in  their  re- 
lations to  one  another  under  varying  conditions  of  tempera- 
ture, presence  of  catalytic  agents,  etc.  And  it  is  not  as  a 
substitute  for,  but  as  a  supplement,  that  we  seek  to  cor- 
relate these  facts  and  their  laws  with  facts  and  laws  of  the 
physical  structure  and  relations  of  atoms,  or  whatever  the 


146  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

ultimate  constituents  of  matter  may  be.  So  with  the 
phenomena  of  life.  The  dominant  concepts  required  for  an 
adequate  theory  of  them  are,  on  the  view  here  maintained, 
ideological,  but  this  involves  no  denial  of  their  physico- 
chemical  aspect,  or  of  the  importance  of  discovering  the 
physico-chemical  arrangements  and  processes  on  which 
teleological  characters  and  relationships  are  built.  To  fore- 
stall misapprehension,  however,  we  ought  to  say  at  once 
that,  when  we  speak  of  teleological  concepts,  we  do  not 
mean  a  design,  or  plan,  or  purpose,  or  desire  consciously 
entertained  by  any  mind,  be  it  of  God,  of  man,  of  animal, 
or  of  plant.  We  need  teleological  concepts  freed  of  these 
implications;  concepts  so  general  that  conscious  designs 
or  desires  are  but  a  special  type  falling  under  them.  The 
way  to  such  a  view  is  opened  by  the  concept  of  value,  the 
introduction  of  which  permits  us  to  read  relations  of  cause 
and  effect  as  also  relations  of  means  to  ends.  The  one 
reading  belongs  to  mechanism,  the  other  to  teleology.  The 
two  readings  do  not  exclude  each  other  but  are  compatible, 
and,  where  the  teleological  reading  is  possible  at  all,  cumula- 
tive. Life  requires  both  readings,  but  the  teleological  read- 
ing must  be  dominant.  This  is  our  thesis. 

One  of  the  corollaries  of  this  thesis  is  the  "  autonomy  of 
life  ",  or  to  put  the  same  point  from  a  different  side,  the 
autonomy  of  biology.  Now,  hi  one  sense  this  is,  of  course, 
a  truism,  which  no  one,  when  the  point  is  put  up  to  him, 
seriously  wants  to  deny,  and  to  insist  upon  which,  there- 
fore, may  seem  a  work  of  supererogation.  Thus  a  convinced 
anti-vitalist,  like  Claude  Bernard,  is  found  writing:  "Je 
serais  d'accord  avec  les  vitalistes  s'ils  voulaient  simplement 
reconnaitre  que  le  etres  vivants  presentent  des  phenomenes 
qui  ne  se  retrouvent  pas  dans  la  nature  brute,  et  qui,  par 
consequent,  leur  sont  speciaux.  J'admets  en  effet  que  les 


Ch.  VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  147 

manifestations  vitales  ne  sauraient  etre  elucidees  par  les 
seuls  phenomenes  physico-chimiques  connu  dans  la  matiere 
brute  ...  La  biologic  doit  prendre  aux  sciences  physico- 
chimiques  la  methode  experimentale,  mais  garder  ses 
phenomenes  speciaux  et  ses  lois  propres  ".* 

The  same  autonomy  obviously  can,  and  ought  to,  be 
claimed  by  every  science  for  itself  and  for  the  field  of 
phenomena  which  it  studies.  All  the  differences  which 
experience  reveals  in  the  world  are,  in  this  sense,  unique, 
specific,  sui  generis.  Why,  then,  is  it  worth  while  insisting 
on  such  a  truism?  Because  there  is  a  noticeable  tendency 
in  many  quarters  to  deny  it,  in  effect,  by  the  way  in  which 
the  ideal  of  a  "  unified  "  theory  of  nature  is  interpreted. 
This  interpretation  constantly  takes  the  form  of  claiming 
to  "  reduce  "  one  type  of  phenomena  to  another,  of  treating 
one  as  nothing  but  another.  Life,  e.g.,  we  find  it  said,  is 
"  merely  "  a  particular  kind  of  physico-chemical  process. 
Interpreted  as  a  denial  of  vital  force  or  entelechy,  the  state- 
ment is  harmless  enough.  But  it  is  harmful,  or  at  least 
dangerous,  in  so  far  as  the  unique  and  distinctive  character 
of  life-processes  is  left  completely  unspecified  and  undeter- 
mined in  this  sweeping  assimilation  of  them  to  physico- 
chemical  processes  in  general.  If  we  ask,  What  particular 
kind  of  physico-chemical  process?  it  becomes  clear  at  once 
that  physico-chemical  terms  are  not  sufficiently  specific  and 
relevant  for  the  answer  required.  In  view  of  this  situation, 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  insist  that  the  attempt  to 
eliminate  differences,  to  break  down  boundaries,  to  unify  by 
the  "  nothing  but "  device,  makes,  not  for  orderly,  but  for 
disorderly  thinking  and  does  a  disservice  to  science.  The 

1  Introduction  d  I 'etude  de  la  Medicine  Experimentale  (1865),  p.  118. 
For  a  similar  statement,  see  H.  S.  Jennings,  Am.  Journal  of  Psychol- 
ogy, 1910,  pp.  349-370.  For  A.  O.  Lovejoy's  comments  see  Science, 
N.  S.,  vol.  xxxiv,  no.  864,  pp.  75-80  (July  1911),  and  his  paper  on 
"  The  Unity  of  Science"  in  the  University  of  Missouri  Bulletin  (1912), 
vol.  i,  no.  1,  esp.  pp.  22  ff. 


148  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

phenomena  of  life  require  to  be  dealt  with  first  and  foremost 
in  their  own  teleological  terms,  and  this  not  as  a  mere 
convenience  of  provisional  "  description  ",  but  as  a  necessity 
of  adequate  "  explanation  ",  or,  better,  of  understanding. 
The  principle  of  the  autonomy  of  life,  then,  means  the 
right  to  use  in  biology  teleological  concepts.  That  biologists 
constantly  do  use  such  concepts,  is  too  familiar  a  fact  to 
require  illustration.  Some  frankly  confess  that  they  cannot 
help  using  them.  Others  are  apologetic  about  them,  as  if 
they  were  a  temporary  makeshift  pending  the  formulation 
of  an  "  explanation  "  in  physico-chemical  terms.  The  thesis 
here  maintained  is  that  the  use  of  teleological  terms  is  not 
a  symptom  of  relative  ignorance.  It  is  not  a  sign  of  the 
inferiority  of  biology  to  physics  and  chemistry.  The  prin- 
ciple of  the  autonomy  of  life  should  be  for  biologists  a 
charter  of  emancipation  from  the  false  fashion  which  leads 
some  thus  to  depreciate  their  science.  It  should  be  a  watch- 
word reminding  them  to  have  the  courage  of  their  practice, 
and  to  insist  on  their  right  to  use  the  language  demanded 
by  the  facts  with  which  they  deal.  Those  who  are 
really  consistent  in  eliminating  all  teleological  concepts 
from  their  thought  and  from  their  language — and  this  is 
patently  the  ideal  which  some  "  mechanists  "  strive  to  real- 
ise— are  compelled  to  misconceive  and  misdescribe  the  facts. 
The  criticism  which  E.  B.  Holt  directs  against  biologists 
who,  in  their  anxiety  not  to  compromise  themselves 
with  animal  souls,  analyse,  e.g.,  a  bee's  behaviour  into  suc- 
cessive responses  to  visual,  auditory,  olfactory,  etc.,  stimuli, 
,  and  over  it  all  lose  sight  of  the  bee  and  of  the  dominant  fact 
that  "  the  bee  is  carrying  honey  to  its  home  ",*  may  serve 
to  illustrate  the  point.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  analysis  of 
Bethe's  which  Holt  here  criticises,  is  itself  still  far  removed 
from  using  strictly  physico-chemical  terms.  Suppose,  then, 
1  The  Freudian  Wish,  p.  77. 


Ch.  VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  149 

we  push  the  issue  back  to  the  point  to  which  a  convinced 
mechanist  must  want  to  push  it.  Is  not,  let  us  ask,  the  bee's 
flight  a  case  of  the  motion  of  a  material  body,  and  must  it 
not,  as  such,  conform  to  the  laws  which  physics  has  formu- 
lated for  matter  in  motion?  Of  course  it  is,  and  we  may 
readily  grant  that,  even  though  the  flight  of  a  bee,  or  the 
antics  of  a  monkey  in  his  cage,1  or  the  behaviour  of  any 
other  living  thing  have  not  yet  been  formulated  in  terms 
of  mechanism,  yet  "  in  theory  "  this  can  be  done.  The  rea- 
son why  it  has  not  at  present  been  done  lies  in  the  exceed- 
ing complexity  of  the  phenomena,  not  in  any  inapplicability 
of  the  laws  of  matter  in  motion  owing  to  their  being  sus- 
pended, or  interfered  with,  by  some  vital  force.  The  im- 
portant point  is:  supposing  it  were  done,  would  it  be  relev- 
ant? Would  it  really  explain,  i.e.,  give  us  a  fuller  insight 
into,  what  the  bee  is  doing  and  why,  than  the  account  in 
teleological  terms  that  it  is  laying  by  honey  in  its  home? 
The  moral  of  these  considerations  is  that  biology  not  only 
does,  but  may,  not  only  may,  but  must,  use  teleological  con- 
cepts, and  use  them,  moreover,  as  logically  dominant  over 
all  other  concepts  which  for  subsidiary  use  it  may  borrow 
from  other  sciences.  That  all  living  beings,  or,  better,  liv- 
ing bodies,  are  physico-chemical  systems  is  here  conceded 
and,  indeed,  insisted  upon  as  much  as  the  most  whole- 
hearted mechanist  can  desire.  But  what  we  also  insist  upon 
is  that,  when  we  study  living  beings  exclusively  from  the 
physico-chemical  point  of  view,  their  character  as  living  does 
not  come  within  our  field  of  study  at  all.  From  that  point 
of  view  the  difference  between  living  and  non-living  is 
simply  irrelevant.  So  far  from  being  explained,  it  is  rather 
ignored.  It  is  not  part  of  the  physicist's  or  chemist's  uni- 
verse of  discourse.  Witness  the  transformation  of  the 
meaning  of  "  organic  "  in  the  chemist's  language.  The  term 
1  See  A.  O.  Lovejoy,  Unity  of  Science,  loc.  cit.,  p.  16. 


ISO  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

there  has  lost  the  exclusive  reference  to  the  living  which 
it  retains  in  the  biologist's  mouth,  and  applies  for  the 
chemist  to  all  carbon-compounds  whatsoever,  regardless  of 
whether  they  are  found  or  produced  in  the  living  or  in  the 
non-living.  This,  surely,  is  instructive.  And  the  moral  of 
it  is  that  the  biologist  who  knows  his  business  will  not  try 
to  "  reduce  "  himself  to  a  species  of  chemist.  Indeed,  it  is 
only  on  condition  of  his  keeping  his  teleological  categories 
dominant,  that  the  investigation  of  the  chemistry  of  vital 
processes  becomes  for  him  relevant  and  significant.  He 
must  first  recognise  a  living  thing  or  a  living  process  as 
such,  before  the  study  of  its  chemical  side  or  basis  becomes 
important  for  him  as  throwing  further  light  on  his  topic. 
In  short,  if  our  topic  is  carbon-compounds,  life  and  the 
concepts  it  involves  are  irrelevant  to  us.  But  if  our  topic 
is  life,  then  the  laws  of  carbon-compounds,  so  far  as  these 
occur  in  vital  structures  and  processes,  are  relevant,  not 
because  they  reveal  to  us,  as  it  is  sometimes  said,  the 
"  secret "  of  life,  but  because  a  knowledge  of  the  chemical 
processes  involved  in  life  (or,  put  differently,  of  the  chem- 
ical bases  or  conditions  of  life)  is  part,  but  not  the  whole,  of 
an  adequate  knowledge  of  life.  Nor  is  biology  in  any  way 
inferior  to  chemistry  and  physics,  because  it  uses  them 
("  depends  "  upon  them,  as  it  is  sometimes  ambiguously 
expressed),  so  far  as  they  are  relevant  for  its  purposes.  Its 
cognitive  interest  is  centred,  first  and  last,  upon  the  study  of 
living  beings,  their  structure,  their  growth,  their  behaviour. 
Their  characteristic  nature  as  living  clamours  for  recogni- 
tion in  specific  concepts.  This  is  the  situation  to  which 
the  vitalist  has  the  merit  of  calling  attention,  though  he 
misinterprets  it  when  he  invokes  entelechies  or  what  not. 
This,  again,  is  the  situation  which  gives  rise  to  the  familiar 
assertion  that  "  no  physico-chemical  explanation  of  life  is 
possible  ".  Such  an  explanation  is  impossible,  not  because 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  151 

of  the  operation  of  a  vital  force,  but  because,  however  de- 
tailed and  complete  in  itself,  it  would  necessarily  fail  to 
touch  the  specific  character  of  vital  phenomena.  To  repeat: 
the  principle  of  the  autonomy  of  life,  as  here  interpreted, 
means,  not  vitalism,  but  teleology — and  teleology  as  com- 
patible with,  but  logically  dominant  over,  mechanism  in 
biology. 

This  thesis  may  be  challenged  on  the  ground  that  it  con- 
flicts with  the  aspiration  of  science  to  achieve  such  an  or- 
ganisation of  knowledge  as  shall  enable  it  to  deduce  vital 
phenomena  from  physico-chemical  phenomena.  Very  com- 
monly in  recent  literature  this  ability  to  deduce  is  identified 
with  an  ability  to  predict,  and  neither  is  held  to  be  possible 
except  on  the  basis  of  a  mechanistic  theory  of  nature.  In 
fact,  the  reduction  of  organic  processes  to  inorganic  proces- 
ses is,  according  to  this  view,  undertaken  chiefly  in  the 
hope  that  it  will  enable  us  from  purely  physico-chemical 
data  to  deduce,  i.e.,  to  predict,  vital  phenomena  say  the  be- 
haviour of  an  animal  in  a  definite  situation.  Thus  Wilhelm 
Roux,  in  his  Entwicklungsmechanik,  formulates  the  me- 
chanistic programme  in  the  words,  "Das  organische  Ge- 
schehen  auf  anorganische  Wirkungsweisen  zuruckzujuhren, 
es  in  solche  Wirkungsweisen  zu  zerlegen,  zu  analysieren" 
So  keen  a  student  of  mechanistic  and  vitalistic  theories  as 
A.  O.  Lovejoy  expands  this  formula  as  follows:  "In  what 
would  a  Zuruckjuhrung  of  biology  to  chemistry  or  physics 
consist?  It  would  consist  in  showing  that  a  given  organic 
process  A  can  be  subsumed  under  and  deduced  from  a  given 
generalisation  B  of  the  more  "  fundamental  science."  *  In 
another  paper  this  is  further  expanded  as  follows:  "What 
the  partisans  of  the  doctrine  of  organic  autonomy  deny  is 
that  you  conceivably  ever  can,  from  a  study  of  the  laws 

i  Science,  N.  S.,  vol.  xxxiii,  no.  851,  p.  611. 


152  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  VI 

of  motion  of  inorganic  particles,  arrive  at  a  law  from  which 
you  can  predict  how  any  living  body  will  behave,  even  if 
you  know  the  number,  size,  arrangement  and  composition  of 
the  particles  composing  that  body"  l 

Before  passing  to  the  particular  issue  of  the  predictability 
of  organic  phenomena,  it  may  be  as  well  to  say  something 
about  prediction  in  general,  to  which  an  altogether  exag- 
gerated importance  is  assigned  in  modern  theories  of  the 
function  of  science.  Claude  Bernard  had  a  sounder  view. 
"  Toute  la  philosophie  naturelle,"  he  writes,  se  resume  en 
cela:  Connaltre  la  loi  des  phenomenes.  Tout  le  probleme 
experimental  se  reduit  a  ceci:  Prevoir  et  diriger  les  phe- 
nomenes." This  distinction  is  surely  well  taken.  It  is  a  valu- 
able corrective  of  the  fashionable  view  which  makes  predic- 
tion the  main  interest  and  business  of  science,  and  treats  the 
discovery  of  laws  as  nothing  more  than  a  means  to  predic- 
tion. Indeed,  we  may  go  even  further  here  than  Claude 
Bernard,  and  regard  prediction,  not  as  a  co-ordinate  aim  of 
science,  but  as  incidental  to  the  experimental  discovery  of 
laws  (in  the  process  of  verifying  hypotheses),  and  as  domi- 
nant only  in  the  practical  application  of  scientific  knowledge 
in  industry.  From  this  point  of  view,  it  is  a  mistake  when 
the  typical  formula  for  a  scientific  law: — If  A,  then  B,  is 
read  off  as  essentially  a  prediction: — If  A  happens,  then  B 
will  happen;  or,  If  you  do  A,  then  you  will  get  B.  Funda- 
mentally, a  law  is  a  statement  of  a  functional  correlation  be- 
tween variables.  "If  A,  then  B  "  means  "  A  implies  B  ", 
and  there  is  no  exclusive  or  essential  reference  in  this  form- 
ula to  the  anticipation  of  future  events.  It  would,  more- 
over, be  wholly  false  to  restrict  science  to  a  preoccupation 
with  the  future.  Science  is  as  much  interested  in  the  past 
as  in  the  future,  and  its  problems  as  often  take  the  form 

1  Science,  N.  S.,  vol.  xxxiv,  no.  864,  p.  78.    Lovejoy's  italics. 

2  Introduction  d  I' etude  de  la  Medicine  Experimentale,  p.  100. 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  153 

of  discovering  the  causes  of  given  effects,  as  of  predicting 
the  effects  of  given  causes.  And,  lastly,  the  treatment  of 
'an  implication  as  a  prediction  is  false,  not  only  to  the  char- 
acter of  an  implication,  but  also  to  the  character  of  a 
prediction.  Prediction,  in  the  proper  sense,  is  not  hypothet- 
ical, but  categorical.  You  do  not  predict  so  long  as  you 
merely  say,  //  A,  then  B.  But  you  do  predict  when  you 
say,  Here  is  an  A,  and  in  virtue  of  the  law,  If  A,  then  B,  I 
infer  that  there  will  be  a  B.  A  law,  in  short,  is  not  a  predic- 
tion, but  may  make  a  prediction  possible  when  applied  to 
a  particular  case,  or  to  put  it  differently,  when  a  definite 
value  is  given  for  one  of  the  correlated  variables.  And  even 
then  the  correlation  must  be  of  the  kind  which  involves 
temporal  sequence  or  order. 

Prediction,  then,  is  by  no  means  identical  with  deduction 
in  general.  It  is  a  special  case  of  deduction,  possible  only 
under  special  conditions.  Moreover,  it  owes  its  prominence 
in  the  discussion  of  mechanism  and  vitalism  to  the  fact 
that  the  relation  of  biology  to  physics  and  chemistry,  or  of 
organic  to  inorganic  processes,  is  usually  conceived,  not 
merely  as  one  of  reduction,  i.e.,  of  subsumption  of  particular 
under  general,  but  as  an  evolutionary  and,  therefore,  tem- 
poral sequence.  In  this  context  we  get  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  life,  in  the  form  whether  from  physico-chemical 
data  alone  a  Laplacean  calculator  could  have  deduced,  i.e., 
predicted,  the  future  appearance  upon  this  earth  of  living 
beings.  Or,  more  narrowly,  could  such  a  calculator,  given 
an  exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  particles  and  forces  in- 
volved in  the  present  position  of  a  human  body  in  its  en- 
vironment, predict  the  next  movement  of  that  body,  e.g., 
the  words  (articulatory  movements)  with  which  it  is  about 
to  break  silence?  * 

1  T  agree  whole-heartedly  with  the  remarks  of  H.  S.  Jennings  con- 
cerning predictability  in  his  paper  "Life  and  Matter,"  originally 


154  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

Let  us  make  the  question  even  more  precise  by  restrict- 
ing it  to  the  law  of  falling  bodies,  and  giving  it  the  form 
of  an  imaginary  experiment.  Compare  the  fall,  through 
the  same  distance  of  space  and  under  the  same  atmospheric 
conditions,  of  two  bodies  which  differ  only  in  that  the  one  is 
lifeless,  the  other  living,  whilst  they  are  alike  in  weight, 
shape,  surface-texture,  and  any  other  factors  which  affect 
the  rate  of  fall.  Do  you,  as  physicist,  expect  to  find  any 
difference  in  the  rate  at  which  the  falling  body  in  each  case 
traverses  the  distance  to  the  ground?  If  you  find  no  dif- 
ference in  this  respect,  is  the  difference  between  being  life- 
less and  alive  relevant  to  you,  as  a  physicist,  at  all?  It 
will  not  be  part  of  the  data  which  make  the  falling  body  a 
11  case  "  of  your  laws.  Hence  your  laws  are  indifferent,  or 
neutral,  to  that  difference.  They  hold  equally  in  either  case. 
A  living  cat  does  not  infringe  or  violate  them.  It  does  not 
fall  slower  or  faster  than  a  dead  one.  Yet  there  is  a  dif- 
ference, as  we  all  know,  not  in  the  rate  of  fall,  but  in  the 
turnings  by  which  the  live  cat  lands  on  its  feet  and  breaks 
the  fall,  escaping  injury  and  death,  whereas  the  impact  of 
the  dead  cat  involves  contusions  of  the  body  and  broken 
bones.  The  point  of  the  argument,  if  there  is  anything  in 
it,  is  simply  this,  that  the  physicist's  data  and  laws  abstract 
from  certain  differences,  which  consequently  can  neither  be 
subsumed  under  his  laws  nor  predicted  from  them  alone.1 

written  for  the  fifth  International  Congress  of  Philosophy  which, 
owing  to  the  war,  was  never  held.  The  paper  will  be  found  in  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University  Circular,  N.  S.,  1914,  no.  10.  The  refer- 
ence is  to  p.  11. 

1  Mention  of  "lifeless,"  in  the  sense  of  "dead,"  bodies  suggests  a 
curious  point,  about  the  exact  bearing  of  which  I  am  neither  clear 
myself,  nor  are,  so  far  as  1  can  find,  my  biological  authorities.  If 
we  dichotomise  bodies  into  living  and  non-living,  organic  and  inor- 
ganic, where  do  we  put  the  bodies  which  are  dead  in  the  sense  of 
having  lost  their  life,  of  having  been  alive  and  having  died?  Does 
an  animal  or  a  plant  by  dying  pass  straightway  into  the  same  class 
with  bodies  that  are  lifeless  in  the  sense  that  neither  life  nor  death 
can  be  predicated  of  them?  In  short,  death  seems  to  fit  awkwardly 
into  the  tidy  classification  of  organic  and  inorganic.  The  point  has 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  155 

The  conclusion  which  we  would  draw  is  that  considera- 
tions of  this  sort  support  our  previous  contention.  The 
biologist  is  interested  in  the  study  of  living  things,  and  hence 
finds  it  convenient  to  divide  all  things  in  nature  into  those 
which  are  living  and  those  which  are  non-living.1  The  in- 
clusion in  his  field  of  study  of  some  things,  the  exclusion 
from  it  of  others,  depend  upon  the  presence  or  absence  of 
the  distinctive  quality  or  character  which  we  call  "  life  ",  and 
which  is  empirically  observable  and  recognisable.  The  phy- 
sicist and  the  chemist  are  not  interested  in  this  character, 
and  its  presence  or  absence  is  irrelevant  to  them.  Hence 
to  them  living  bodies  as  much  as  lifeless  bodies  are  physico- 
chemical  systems.  But  the  biologist's  interest  in  life  makes 
him  interested  also  in  the  physico-chemical  structures  and 
processes  without  which  life  is  not  found  in  our  world. 
Hence  his  point  of  view,  in  this  respect,  may  be  called  syn- 
thetic or  synoptic.  In  any  case,  if  our  universe  is  to  be 
intellectually  tidy  and  ordered,  we  need  both  points  of  view 
as  cumulative  and  supplementary,  viz.,  the  point  of  view 

interesting  ramifications.  The  biologist,  in  effect,  ceases  to  be  inter- 
ested in  an  animal  when  it  has  died.  It  has  ceased  to  "  behave  "  and 
to  "  respond " ;  its  organs  have  ceased  to  function ;  the  phenomena 
of  regulation,  so  important  in  the  economy  of  life,  no  longer  appear. 
Yet  would  a  physiologist  necessarily  agree  to  draw  the  line  there? 
I  recall  being  shown  as  a  student  an  elaborate  and  expensive  apparatus 
in  the  Physiological  Laboratory  at  Oxford,  used  for  experiments  upon 
eyes  taken  from  dead  frogs,  the  result  being  interpreted  as  bearing 
on  the  question  whether  black  is  a  positive  sensation.  It  seemed  to 
me  humorous,  but  mechanists  may  think  the  joke  is  on  me. — If  we 
look  in  another  direction,  we  find  in  the  economy  of  nature  that 
dead  organisms  play  an  immensely  important  part  as  food  for  organ- 
isms which  are  alive.  Is  not  breathing  almost  the  only  exception  to 
the  rule  that,  above  the  level  of  plants,  living  things  absorb  inorganic 
substances  only  indirectly,  by  inflicting  death  on  other  living  things 
or  living  on  things  that  have  died?  And  to  a  large  extent  this  is 
true  even  of  plants. 

1  It  is  perhaps  not  an  unnecessary  reminder,  at  least  to  those  of  us 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  biology,  but  familiar  with  the  history  of 
philosophical  terms,  that  when  biologists  use  "  animate  "  as  a  synonym 
of  living  or  organic,  and  "  inanimate "  as  a  synonym  of  non-living 
or  inorganic,  they  do  not  identify  life  with  the  presence  of  an  anima 
or  soul.  They  ring  the  changes  on  these  terms  simply  to  avoid 
monotony  of  style. 


156  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

from  which  all  bodies  are  physico-chemical  systems,  and 
the  point  of  view  from  which  some  are  living  and  others 
are  not.  There  is,  if  we  like  to  put  it  so,  homogeneity  and 
continuity  from  one  point  of  view,  heterogeneity  and  discon- 
tinuity from  the  other.  But  nothing  is  gained  by  ignoring 
one  of  these  two  sides. 

But  this,  it  may  be  said,  is  incompatible  with  the  unity 
of  science,  which  requires  a  determinism  in  homogeneous 
terms,  such  as  can  be  supplied  only  by  a  mechanistic  theory, 
i.e.,  a  theory  by  which  all  qualitative  differences  are  reduced 
to,  and  explained  in,  terms  of  one  kind  only,  and  these  ulti- 
mately the  terms  of  physics.  The  admission  of  non- 
mechanistic  concepts  would  destroy  the  determinism  which 
is  essential  to  science  in  general  and  to  experimentation  in 
particular. 

The  reply  to  this  objection  is,  briefly,  that  our  thesis  not 
only  does  not  involve  the  surrender  of  determinism,  rightly 
interpreted,  but  meets  all  the  logical  requirements  of  the 
situation.  The  main  points  may  be  summarised  as  follows, 
(a)  In  the  first  place,  we  ought  to  distinguish  between 
determinism  and  mechanism.  The  determinism  which  is 
identical  with  "  reason  "  in  science,  and  without  which  any 
11  rational "  explanation  of  natural  phenomena  is  rightly 
said  to  be  impossible,  requires  merely  that  every  such  phe- 
nomenon shall  be  "  determined  by  "  some  other  phenomenon, 
i.e.,  correlated  with  it  according  to  a  law.  A  mechanistic 
theory  is  but  a  special  form  of  this  general  principle 
of  determinism,  deriving  its  specific  character  partly  from 
the  introduction  of  a  temporal  factor  (cause  preceding  ef- 
fect), but  more  characteristically  from  the  exclusive  use  of 
physico-chemical  terms,  (b)  Every  law  is  a  statement  of  an 
implication  between  universals,  or,  in  mathematical  termin- 
ology, of  a  functional  correlation  between  variables.  In  the 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  157 

natural  sciences  which  deal  with  existences  in  time  and 
space,  presented  or  presentable  in  the  form  of  sense-data,  all 
universals  have  cases,  or  instances,  or  applications;  all 
variables  have  definite  values,  (c)  But  a  unified  theory  of 
nature  does  not  require  the  reduction  of  all  universals  to 
one  kind,  or  the  restriction  of  all  variables  to  one  type  of 
values.  We  have  laws  correlating  geometrical,  physical, 
chemical  phenomena  among  themselves  in  each  group,  as 
well  as  laws  correlating  phenomena  of  one  group  with 
those  of  another.  There  will  then  result  a  scheme,  or  an 
order,  in  which  differences  are  preserved  and  "  saved  ",  in- 
stead of  being  "  reduced  ",  and  in  which  a  unified  theory  is 
achieved  by  the  correlation  of  different  types,  or  groups, 
or  levels,  of  phenomena  which  follow  also  among  themselves 
each  its  own  characteristic  laws,  (d)  We  shall  thus  expect 
to  find  what,  indeed,  we  actually  get  in  a  large  part  of 
biological  work,  viz.,  a  determinism  in  terms  which  are 
thoroughly  teleological.  Such  a  determinism  will  meet  all 
the  requirements  of  what  H.  S.  Jennings  pleads  for  under 
the  names  of  "  experimental  determinism  "  or  "  radically 
experimental  analysis  'V  One  might  formulate  the  prin- 
ciple of  determinism  as  "  every  difference  makes  a  differ- 
ence ".  This  is  nothing  but  functional  correlation  expressed 
in  other  words.  For,  when  two  factors  are  correlated,  a 
change  in  one  must  involve  a  corresponding  change  in  the 
other — "  corresponding  ",  whether  or  no  the  variations  on 
both  sides  are  measurable  and  quantitatively  determinable. 
In  scientific  observation  the  rule  of  method  is,  given  an  ob- 
served difference  A  to  search  for  some  other  observable  dif- 
ference B,  such  that  A  is  present  where  B  is  present,  absent 
when  B  is  absent,  and  varies  concomitantly  with  the  varia- 

1  See  his  contribution  to  the  discussion,  Philosophical  Review,  Vol. 
xxvii,  No.  6,  pp.  592  ff ;  also  his  article  on  Dricsch's  Vitalism  and 
Experimental  Determinism  in  Science,  vol.  xxxvi,  p.  434, 


158  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

tions  of  B.  This  is  the  elementary  ABC  of  induction.  Ex- 
perimentation applies  the  same  principle  by  artificially  in- 
troducing, removing,  or  varying  B  so  as  to  study  its  correla- 
tion with  A.  As  H.  S.  Jennings  says — in  complete  accord 
with  the  teachings  of  logicians  on  this  point — the  whole 
"  organisation  "  of  experience  by  "  discovery  of  correspond- 
ence in  diversities  "  depends  on  this  principle.1  (e)  The 
only  point  of  refinement  which  we  may,  perhaps,  claim  to 
add  to  the  above  account  is  the  insistence  on  what  we  have 
ventured  to  call  the  "  logical  dominance  "  of  the  character- 
istic concepts  and  laws  of  biology,  on  the  ground  that  bio- 
logy deals  with  structures  and  processes  which  have,  in- 
deed, their  physico-chemical  aspect,  but  cannot  be  reduced 
to  exclusively  physico-chemical  terms  without  sacrificing 
precisely  what  makes  them  distinctive. 

It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  in  defence  of  teleology 
and  of  the  language  of  "  purpose,"  by  ridding  the  latter 
term  of  certain  associations,  the  presence  of  which  makes 
it  unwelcome  to  scientists,  and  which  are  not  required  by 
the  facts. 

"  Purpose "  is  objectionable,  because  it  suggests  the 
activity  of  a  scheming  or  designing  intelligence  where  no 
evidence  of  such  is  found.  To  talk  of  purposes  in  nature 
at  once  gives  rise  to  the  suspicion  that  their  admission  is 
to  be  exploited,  as  in  the  old  Argument  from  Design,  in 
the  interests  of  an  anthropomorphic  deity;  that  intelligible 
law  is  to  be  replaced  by  an  unintelligible  will.  But  our 
plea  here  is  that  the  terms  can  be  freed  from  these  impli- 
cations and  made  scientifically  useful.  A  transition  can 
be  made  from  "  efficient "  to  "  final  "  causes  by  the  simple 
reminder,  that  a  nexus  of  cause  and  effect  can  also  be  taken 

1  Life  and  Matter,  p.  6  et  passim.    Cf.  also  the  general  position  out- 
lined there  on  pp.  10-11. 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  159 

as  a  nexus  of  means  and  end,  whenever  the  effect  has  value. 
A  natural  law  neither  demands  nor  forbids  the  introduction 
of  the  concept  of  value,  and  is,  therefore,  entirely  com- 
patible with  it,  if  the  empirical  facts  should  demand  it. 
Some  modern  writers,  indeed,  would  limit  the  application 
of  the  concept  of  value  to  whatever  is  desired.  Things, 
they  say,  become  valuable,  or  acquire  value,  by  being  de- 
sired. But,  again,  it  is  not  in  this  sense  that  the  term 
"  value  "  is  to  be  employed  here.  When  biological  science 
speaks  of  conditions  as  "  beneficial  "  or  "  harmful  "  for  the 
organism;  when  it  calls  some  chemical  substances  "  foods," 
others  "waste-products";  when  it  speaks  of  the  "func- 
tion "  of  an  organ,  or  through  the  concept  of  "  organisa- 
tion "  interprets  the  parts  in  the  light  of  the  whole;  when, 
in  dealing  with  "  growth,"  "  behaviour,"  "  reproduction," 
etc.,  it  applies  the  concept  of  the  maintenance  or  develop- 
ment of  each  characteristic  type  of  living  structure — its 
language  is  full  of  the  kind  of  teleology  which  the  term 
"  value,"  or,  if  it  be  preferred,  "  objective  value,"  is  here 
intended  to  cover.  Wherever,  broadly  speaking,  the  facts 
challenge  us  to  say,  not  merely  that  B  is  the  effect  of  A, 
but  that  B  is  the  reason  why,  or  that  for  the  sake  of  which, 
A  exists  or  occurs,  there  we  have  the  immanent  purposive- 
ness  of  living  things.  To  introduce  here  the  analogy  of 
human  purposes,  i.e.,  to  suppose  the  existence  of  these 
structures,  the  occurrence  of  these  activities  and  function- 
ings,  to  have  been  preceded  by  a  desire  for  their  existence  or 
occurrence,  or  by  a  conscious  design,  plan,  scheme,  first 
thought  out  and  then  realised  by  the  manipulation  of  means, 
would  be  misleading  and  irrelevant.  No  living  thing  begins 
by  planning  or  desiring  its  own  existence,  its  own  form  and 
function.  No  organism  grows  and  lives  according  to  a  pre- 
conceived specification,  building  up  its  body  like  a  builder 
working  to  a  design,  or  like  a  tailor  working  to  a  pattern. 


160  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

"  No  living  thing  ",  we  said.  And  this  covers  not  only 
plants  and  animals,  but  man.  For,  though  we  may  claim 
each  to  be  "  master  of  his  fate,"  yet  for  all  the  planning 
that  we  do,  for  all  the  efforts  that  we  make  to  guide  our- 
selves and  our  world  towards  desired  results,  we  tend  vastly 
to  overrate  the  part  that  desiring  and  scheming  play  in 
making  us  and  our  world  what  they  are.  Conscious  choice, 
intelligent  control,  art,  mask  but  do  not  displace  the  im- 
manent and  unconscious  purposiveness  which  the  lives  of 
individuals  and  societies  exhibit,  and  which  is  discernible 
even  through  their  misfits  and  failures. 

When  we  ask  what  character  in  natural  objects,  or  in 
nature  as  a  whole,  exhibits  this  immanent  purposiveness, 
this  "  design,"  most  clearly,  the  answer  must  surely  be  that 
it  is  organisation — not  merely  in  the  static  sense  of  a  sys- 
tematic structure  of  differentiated  parts,  but  in  the  dynamic 
sense  of  this  structure  at  work  and  functioning  as  a  whole, 
responding  through  its  organs  (which  are  very  literally 
"  instruments  ")  to  its  environment,  adapting  that  environ- 
ment to  itself  and  itself  to  it.  A  purposive  structure,  in 
Kant's  famous  phrase,  is  one  in  which  parts  and  whole  are 
reciprocally  means  and  ends.  The  subordination  of  the 
parts  to  the  whole  lies  precisely  in  that  delicate  mutual 
adjustment  of  the  parts  which,  in  respect  of  their  function- 
ing, we  call  regulative,  and  which  in  form  as  well  as  in 
function  yields  the  characteristic  individuality — one  might 
almost  say,  using  the  word  in  the  artistic  sense,  "  the  effect  " 
— of  each  living  thing.  Aristotle  went  straight  to  the  heart 
of  the  matter  when  he  compared  this  organisation  of  each 
living  thing  to  the  order  of  a  commonwealth.  "  And  the 
animal  organism  must  be  conceived  after  the  similitude  of  a 
well-governed  commonwealth.  When  order  is  once  estab- 
lished in  it,  there  is  no  more  need  of  a  separate  monarch  to 
preside  over  each  several  task.  The  individuals  each  play 


Ch.VI]  MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  161 

their  assigned  part  as  it  is  ordered,  and  one  thing  follows 
another  in  its  accustomed  order.  So  in  animals  there  is 
the  same  orderliness — nature  taking  the  place  of  custom  and 
each  part  naturally  doing  its  work  as  nature  has  composed 
them."  *  We  have  here  clearly  what  in  the  language  of 
modern  biology  is  expressed  as  "  the  conception  of  the  living 
thing  as  an  autonomous  unit  in  which  every  part  is  func- 
tionally related  to  every  other  and  exists  as  the  servant  of 
the  whole  ".2 

And  yet  living  beings  are  also  constantly  spoken  of  as 
"  living  machines  "  and  their  organs  as  "  mechanisms  "  for 
doing  this  or  that.  Whence  it  is  a  short  step  to  the  demand 
for  an  exclusively  "  mechanical  "  explanation.  But  a  brief 
reflection  on  the  concept  of  a  machine  will  both  account  for 
the  plausibility  of  this  language  and  yet  lend  support  to 
our  view.  It  is  surely  a  startling  paradox  that  machines, 
which,  as  human  tools  for  human  ends,  are  more  patently 
purposive  than  anything  else  in  the  world,  being  artefacts 
of  human  design,  should  have  furnished  by  analogy  the 
concepts  which  are  used  to  shut  out  from  the  purview  of 
science,  not  merely  conscious  design,  but  the  immanent  pur- 
posiveness  exhibited  in  organisation  and  regulation.  Yet  a 
machine  is  nothing  if  not  organised,  and  frequently  it  is 
fitted  with  devices  for  regulating  its  own  workings.  It  is,  in 
fact,  like  an  organism,  a  systematic  structure  of  differenti- 
ated parts  with  differentiated  functions.  It  was  this  un- 
canny likeness  of  machines  to  organisms  which  suggested 
Samuel  Butler's  brilliant  fancy,  in  Erewhon,  of  a  revolt  of 
machines  against  man,  their  maker,  the  intelligence  em- 
bodied in  them  making  itself,  as  it  were,  independent.  What 

1  Henderson  has  done  a  real  service  in  reminding  us  of  this  passage 
in  his  Order  of  Nature,  p.  16;  Arist.,  De  Part.  An.,  645a,  20. 

2  Henderson,   ibid.,   p.  21.     "  Functionally   related "    in    this   context 
must  be  taken  to  bear  both  the  mathematical  and  the  teleological  sense. 
The  two  senses  correspond  to  cause-effect,  means-end  respectively. 


i62  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.VI 

is  it  that  enables  science  to  borrow  from  so  purposeful  and 
highly  organised  a  thing  as  a  machine  the  concepts  for  deal- 
ing with  the  non-purposive  and  inorganic?  The  answer 
would  seem  to  be  this.  A  machine,  just  because  as  a  human 
tool  it  exists,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  some- 
thing other  than  itself,  makes  it  easy  to  abstract  from  its 
purpose  and  to  consider  its  organised  structure  as  simply 
a  system  of  particles  and  forces,  undergoing  transformations 
according  to  purely  physical  laws.  A  physicist,  whom  we 
will  suppose  ignorant  of  the  purpose  of  a  watch,  might  still 
be  able  to  analyse  it  as  a  mechanism  and  to  explain  just  why 
this  intricate  arrangement  of  toothed  wheels  and  other 
devices,  operated  by  a  spring,  must  effect  the  rotation  of 
two  hands,  each  at  its  own  uniform  speed,  but  one  twelve 
times  as  fast  as  the  other.  So  far  the  mechanistic  point  of 
view,  with  its  cause-effect  principle,  might  carry  him,  nor 
need  he  know  the  end  to  which  the  whole  arrangement  is  the 
means.  Now,  if  it  is  easy  to  analyse  a  machine  which  has  a 
purpose  as  if  it  had  none,  because  its  purpose  is  "  external " 
to  its  own  existence,  it  is  even  easier  to  ignore  the  imma- 
nent purposiveness  of  an  organism,  which  is  not  obviously 
an  instrument  for  anything.  Thus,  by  a  similar  abstraction 
from  their  teleological  character,  organism  and  machine  can 
be  analysed,  as  if  neither  exhibited  any  characters  except 
those  of  which  we  take  account  when  we  study  them  as 
physico-chemical  systems. 


CHAPTER  VII 

MECHANISM   AND  VITALISM:    FURTHER  PROBLEMS. 

BROADLY  speaking,  the  argument  of  the  preceding  essay  has 
been  built  upon  nothing  more  recondite  than  the  two  prin- 
ciples of  the  autonomy  of  each  science  within  its  own  field, 
and  of  the  order  of  sciences  which  results  from  the  fact 
that  one  science  may  be,  as  we  called  it,  "  logically  domi- 
nant "  over  another.  The  science  which  is  higher  in  this 
sense  makes  a  subsidiary  use  of  the  more  general  prin- 
ciples and  theories  of  the  lower,  whilst  maintaining  through- 
out the  characteristic  concepts  appropriate  to  its  own  more 
special  and  distinctive  phenomena.  In  this  way,  so  we  had 
urged,  the  order  of  the  sciences  corresponds  to,  and  reflects, 
the  way  in  which  in  the  "  order  of  nature  "  phenomena  of 
a  higher  level  or  type  are,  as  it  were,  superimposed  on 
phenomena  of  a  lower  type,  whilst  being  at  the  same  time 
conditioned  by  the  latter,  in  the  sense  that  without  these 
latter  the  former  are  not  found  to  occur.  The  relationships 
here  involved  seem  peculiar,  and  none  of  the  familiar  meta- 
phors or  analogies  appear  to  fit  them.  So  far  as  the  higher 
phenomena  are  conditioned  by  the  lower — have  in  the  lower 
their  sine  qua  non — there  is,  if  we  like  to  say  so,  a  "  corre- 
lation." Yet  this  term,  with  its  suggestion  of  a  parallelism, 
or  one-to-one  correspondence,  does  not  really  hit  off  the 
way  in  which,  e.g.,  in  breathing,  the  physical  process  of  in- 
flating and  deflating  the  lungs,  and  the  chemical  process  of 
oxidising  the  blood,  are  subservient  to,  are  means  for  secur- 
ing, an  effect  which  is  "  beneficial "  to  the  organism,  or, 
in  other  words,  a  necessary  element  in  its  total  self-main- 
tenance. The  teleological  character  which  is  dominant,  and 

163' 


164  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

is  taken  for  granted  when  we  talk  of  "  breathing,"  instead 
of  talking  merely  of  "  oxidisation,"  or  of  sucking  air  into 
a  bag  and  expelling  it  again,  depends  on  considering  the 
junction  of  the  process  in  the  life-economy  of  the  organism, 
the  importance  of  the  part  it  plays  in  the  creature's  self- 
maintenance;  in  short,  its  value.  The  recognition  of  this 
situation,  so  we  had  argued,  is  required  in  order  to  "  save," 
as  elements  in  an  inclusive  world-view,  both  the  appearances 
which  we  call  "  mechanical,"  and  those  which  we  call 
"  teleological."  For  the  lower  science  the  phenomena  of  the 
higher  are  merely  another  set  of  "  cases  "  falling  under  its 
general  principles,  but  precisely  for  this  reason  the  lower 
science  is  completely  incapable  of  dealing  with  what  is 
distinctive  and  unique  in  the  phenomena  of  the  higher. 
This  is  why  there  is  no  a  priori  way  of  "  deducing  "  the 
higher  phenomena  from  the  principles  of  the  lower.  When 
the  higher  phenomena  are  met  with,  they  are  always  found, 
not  only  to  be  consistent  with  the  laws  of  the  lower,  but 
also  to  require  the  existence  of  the  lower  phenomena  for 
their  own  existence.  But  no  knowledge  merely  of  the  lower 
phenomena  would  make  possible  a  purely  deductive  "  antici- 
pation of  nature  " — a  prevision  of  teleological  structures 
at  a  time  when  none  had  as  yet  made  their  appearance  in 
nature. 

The  present  essay  is  to  be  devoted  to  a  further  examina- 
tion of  certain  aspects  of  the  problem — aspects  which  run,  in 
a  tantalising  way,  through  all  the  current  discussions  of 
mechanism,  vitalism,  and  teleology,  without  being,  as  a  rule, 
explicitly  focused  so  that  their  bearing  on  the  resulting 
theory  may  be  clearly  perceived.  We  shall  discuss  these 
aspects  most  conveniently  under  the  following  three  head- 
ings: 

( i )  The  concept  of  machine  in  its  relation  to  mechanical 
theory. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  165 

(2)  The  "  scientific  "  and  the  "  romantic  "  points  of  view, 
with  special  reference  to  the  ideal  of  "  logical  continuity." 

(3)  The  empirical  basis  of  teleology  as  applied  to  life.1 

(i)  First,  then,  we  take  up  the  concepts  of  machine  and 
mechanism.  "  The  living  body  in  general,  and  the  human 
body  in  particular,  obviously  acts  in  some  respects  like  a 
mechanism,  while  in  other  respects  it  appears  to  act  dif- 
ferently." With  these  words,  Mr.  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  one  of 
the  Aristotelian  symposiasts,2  opens  his  contribution.  Pres- 
ently he  goes  on:  "  The  characteristics  of  mechanism  can  be 
seen  in  a  man-made  machine,"  and  after  some  discussion  he 
sums  them  up  in  the  formula,  "  A  whole  is  mechanical  when 
and  in  so  far  as  its  parts  act  uniformly  in  response  to  the 
forces  operating  in  each  of  them,  not  varying  in  relation 
to  the  results  of  this  action  or  to  the  state  of  other  parts." 
The  force  of  the  negatives  in  this  account  will  be  appreciated 
by  comparison  with  the  formula  for  an  "  organic  whole," 
viz.,  "  A  whole  acts  organically  when  and  in  so  far  as  the 
operation  of  any  part  is  varied  in  accordance  with  the  re- 
quirements of  the  whole  as  a  self-maintaining  structure." 
The  crucial  point  of  observation  behind  the  contrasting 
formulae  appears  to  lie  in  a  comparison  between  what  hap- 
pens when  a  living  organism  and  a  man-made  machine, 
respectively,  get  out  of  order.  Supply  motive  power  to  a 
machine  out  of  order  and,  so  far  as  it  works,  or  rather 
moves,  at  all,  "  each  several  part  acts  uniformly  without 
relation  to  the  rest  in  response  to  the  forces  operating  upon 
it,  whatever  they  may  be."  Disorder,  in  short,  reveals  the 
characteristic  principle  on  which  the  working  of  a  machine 
even  in  order  depends,  but  which  is  there  disguised  by  the 

1  See  the  Note  at  the  end  of  this  f  ,say  for  a  brief  discussion  of 
the  problem  of  the  origin  of  life,  with  special  reference  to  Bergson's 
elan  vital. 

2  See  note  at  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  essay,  p.  141. 


166  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

fact  that  the  human  designer  and  maker  has  so  arranged 
the  parts  and  forces  in  their  "  normal "  state,  that,  though 
"  each  acts  uniformly  without  relation  to  the  rest  in  re- 
sponse to  the  forces  operating  upon  it,"  they  yet  together 
produce  the  result  which  the  designer  wants.  A  living 
organism  out  of  order — short  of  the  degree  of  disorder 
which  results  in  death — struggles  back  to  order  and  normal 
functioning,  or  as  near  to  these  as  it  can.  Its  structures 
are  so  arranged,  and  their  functions  so  regulated,  that  it 
keeps  itself  in  order  and,  when  injured  or  disturbed,  re- 
stores itself  to  order.  A  machine  out  of  order  loses  the  co- 
operation of  its  parts,  nor  can  it,  by  itself,  restore  or  recover 
that  cooperation.  It  ceases  to  function  as  a  "  whole,"  where 
the  character  of  wholeness  consists  in  producing  the  result 
for  which  it  is  the  instrument,  in  doing  what  it  is  designed 
to  do  and  what,  in  good  order,  it  actually  does.  An  organ- 
ism out  of  order,  short  of  death,  never  ceases  completely  to 
function  as  a  whole,  though  the  character  of  wholeness  here 
can  be  defined  only  as  that  self -maintenance,  that  perform- 
ing of  the  characteristic  cycle  of  activities,  in  which  the 
life  of  each  kind  of  creature  consists.  The  cooperation  of 
the  parts,  though  disturbed,  is  not  lost.  Regulatory  ad- 
justments take  place  which  enable  as  much  of  the  normal 
life-economy  to  be  carried  on  as  possible,  and  which  tend  to 
restore  it  to  full  normality. 

Something  like  this,  in  fact  and  theory,  seems  to  be  in- 
volved for  Hobhouse  in  the  difference  between  living  or- 
ganism and  man-made  machine. 

With  more  elaborate  scientific  detail,  the  same  contrast 
runs  through  the  argument  of  another  one  of  the  symposi- 
asts,  Dr.  J.  S.  Haldane,  the  well-known  physiologist.  "  A 
living  organism,"  he  writes,  "  diff ers  in  this  respect  from 
any  mechanism  we  can  construct  or  conceive,  that  it  forms 
itself  and  keeps  itself  in  working  order  and  activity."  The 


Ch.VTI]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cent.)  167 

moral  which  Haldane  does  not  hesitate  to  draw,  with  a 
lengthy  illustration  from  the  stages  in  the  development  of 
the  kinetic  theory  of  gases,  is  that  the  scope  of  the  mechani- 
cal theory  is  limited  to  what  we  can  "  construct  and  con- 
ceive," and  that,  even  as  applied  to  infra-organic,  purely 
physical  and  chemical,  entities  and  processes  in  nature,  it 
is  no  more  than  a  useful  "  short-cut,"  a  convenient,  but 
highly  abstract,  working-hypothesis,  the  formulae  of  which 
are  "  imperfect  representations  "  even  of  the  behaviour  of 
molecules.  "  The  abstract  mechanical  conception  of  a  mole- 
cule is  unreal."  "  We  cannot  sum  up  the  properties  of 
molecules  in  the  conception  of  mass,  extension,  and  central 
forces  proportionate  to  mass,  in  accordance  with  the  funda- 
mental physical  conceptions  of  Newton."  The  very  progress 
of  physical  chemistry,  he  claims,  is  constantly  sharpen- 
ing and  justifying  the  distinction  between  what  is  living 
and  what  is  non-living.  His  main  arguments1  in  support 
of  this  claim  are  the  following  two:  (a)  Physiological 
processes  once  thought  capable  of  a  simple  and  easy 
mechanical  explanation,  have  for  modern  research  turned 
out  to  be  so  complex,  that  the  probability  of  a  mechanical 
explanation  sufficing  is  fast  disappearing.  "  On  the  whole 
there  is  no  evidence  of  real  progress  towards  a  mechanistic 
explanation  of  life."  (b)  "  The  idea  of  a  mecnanism  which 
is  constantly  maintaining  or  reproducing  its  own  structure 
is  self-contradictory,"  for  a  mechanical  explanation  must 
assume,  as  given,  a  fixed  system  of  interacting  parts,  and 
such  a  system  can  neither  itself  grow,  nor  out  of  a  tiny 
speck  of  itself  give  rise  to  another  system  of  the  same  sort. 
The  growth  of  a  crystal  is  no  point  to  the  contrary,  no  valid 
link  between  the  living  and  the  non-living,  for  "  the  arrange- 

1  We  omit  here  his  general  philosophical  argument  that  "  the  physical 
and  biological  worlds  are  only  abstractions  from  the  objective  world," 
i.e.,  "  the  world  as  interpreted  in  knowledge,"  or,  in  other  words,  that 
they  represent  degrees  of  approximation  to  a  complete  theory  of  reality. 


168  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

ment  of  the  molecules  in  the  crystal  is  mere  repetition, 
whereas  in  the  organism  there  is  individual  variety  of  detail, 
and  yet  perfectly  definite  and  specific  unity  of  plan."  This 
is  clearly  Haldane's  version  of  Bergson's  point  that,  for 
mechanism,  "  tout  est  donne,"  and  of  Driesch's  distinction 
between  mechanism  and  an  "  equipotential  system."  It  may 
be  recalled  here  to  what  an  extent  Driesch,  in  building  up 
the  concept  of  an  equipotential  system,  relies  on  argument 
concerning  what  a  machine  can,  or  cannot,  do. 

The  challenge  of  these  views  is  taken  up  hi  the  Aristote- 
lian symposium  by  Professor  Thompson  who,  adding  to  an 
equally  sound  scientific  equipment  the  sure  instinct  of  the 
practised  debater,  makes  the  following  points  in  reply:  (i) 
man-made  machines  have  been  equipped  with  devices,  how- 
ever crude,  for  self-regulation,  such  as,  in  infinitely  greater 
variety,  complexity,  and  delicacy,  we  find  in  natural  ma- 
chines. "  In  Nature  herself,  if  we  look  at  her  larger  handi- 
work, self-regulation  and  self-maintenance  become  para- 
mount attributes  and  characteristics  of  her  machines.  The 
solar  system,  qua  mechanism,  is  the  perfect  specimen,  the 
very  type  and  norm,  of  a  self -maintaining,  self-regulating 
mechanism;  and  so  also,  grade  after  grade,  are  its  dependent 
mechanisms,  such  as  the  world-wide  currents  of  the  at- 
mosphere." This  amounts  to  an  assimilation  of  man-made 
machines  and  living  organisms.  The  latter  are  viewed  as 
more  perfect  machines — patterns,  as  it  were,  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  which  human  machines  but  remotely  approximate. 
(2)  The  same  assimilation,  the  same  "  community  of  prin- 
ciples in  the  two  classes  of  machines,"  is  supported  by  the 
actual  and  fruitful  interchange  of  observations  and  ideas  be- 
tween the  workers  in  ordinary  physics  and  chemistry  and 
those  in  biological  chemistry  and  physiology.  Physiologists, 
from  their  study  of  the  "physiological  machine,"  have 
helped  to  collect  evidence  for,  and  formulate,  the  principles 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  169 

of  the  conservation  of  energy.  It  was  a  botanist  who  intro- 
duced osmosis  to  the  attention  of  physicists.  (3)  "  Mecha- 
nism is  not  a  stationary  concept  but  a  growing  one  " :  its 
apparatus  of  concepts  and  principles  is  constantly  expand- 
ing as  further  research  reveals  previously  undreamt-of 
complexities.  The  concept  of  "  matter  "  has  recently  under- 
gone, and  is  still  undergoing,  profound  modifications,  but  the 
new  concept  is  still  "  commensurate  with  the  old  " — its 
fundamental  character  is  still  "  mechanical." 1 

What  emerges  from  this  confrontation  of  witnesses  on 
what  a  machine  can  or  cannot  do?  The  outcome  of  a  judi- 
cial summing  up  would  seem  to  be  this: — 

If  by  "  mechanism  "  we  mean  the  theory  of  "  machines," 
the  only  question  is,  which  among  the  objects  in  the  world, 
and  in  respect  of  what  properties  and  activities,  are  to  be 
counted  as  machines?  This,  be  it  noted,  is  not  a  question  to 
be  answered  by  an  a  priori  definition.  The  actual  procedure 
of  science  is  not  now,  and  never  has  been,  to  inscribe  first, 
as  it  were  on  a  tabula  rasa,  a  neat  definition  of  what  char- 
acters anything  is  to  possess  which  is  rightly  to  be  called  a 
"  machine."  The  actual  procedure  is  to  compare  and  analyse 
objects,  tracing  affinities,  noting  differences,  and  thus  collect, 
or,  if  we  like  to  say  so,  construct,  the  concept  or  definition 
of  a  machine.  Now  the  whole  issue  is,  technically,  whether 
certain  affinities  are  to  prevail  over  certain  differences.  If 
with  Hobhouse  and,  on  the  whole,  with  Haldane,  we  collect 
our  concept  from  man-made  machines,  the  obvious  differ- 

1  Here,  as  before7~we  omit  Professor  Thompson's  general  philosoph- 
ical position,  which  is  built  on  two  principles,  viz.,  (a)  a  dualism  of 
"matter"  and  "mind"  (consciousness),  biology  being  "the  study  of 
the  forms,  whether  gross  or  molecular,  assumed  by  matter  in  the 
fabric  of  living  things,  and  all  the  changes,  processes,  activities  asso- 
ciated therewith,  so  far  ...  as  we  can  study  them  apart  from 
Consciousness,  or  'conscious  reactions'";  (fc)  a  conviction  that 
mechanism,  though  "  but  one  aspect  of  the  world,"  is  a  "  glorious " 
aspect,  and  the  study  of  it  is  one  way  of  nourishing  the  "faith  that 
the  world  is  good." 


170  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

ences  between  them  and  living  creatures  forbid,  of  course, 
the  application  of  the  machine-theory  to  the  latter,  for  all 
that  they  are  both  "  physical  bodies."  If  with  Thompson 
we  start  out  by  collecting  our  concept  of  machine  from  liv- 
ing creatures,  we  shall,  of  course,  credit  machines  with  the 
power  to  do  whatever  we  find  living  creatures  doing,  and 
man-made  machines  will  seem  only  poor  caricatures  of  the 
marvels  of  Nature.  Indeed,  if  it  were  not  for  Thompson's 
capricious  retention  of  the  dualism  of  matter  a»d  mind, 
there  would  be  no  reason  why  he  should  not  acknowledge 
the  existence  of  thinking  and  talking,  empire-building, 
war-making,  railroad-conducting,  stockmarket-operating 
machines  of  Nature,  as  well  as  of  self -reproducing  and  self- 
maintaining  ones.1  If  a  machine  can  do  whatever  a  physical 
body  does,  then  whatever  human  beings  do,  enlarges  our  con- 
cept of  machine.  La  Mettrie's  L'homme  machine,  like  the 
Mecanique  humaine  with  which  Thompson  would  like  to 
parallel  the  astronomer's  Mecanique  celeste,  loses  all  its 
"  materialistic  "  terrors  if  we  credit  the  human  machine,  not 
only  with  physiological  functions,  but  with  art  and  science, 
religion  and  morality.  Nothing  but  prejudice  can  put  a  stop 
to  this  extension  of  the  machine-concept,  though  strangely 
enough  the  defenders  of  a  mechanical  theory  of  living  bodies 
generally  lose  interest  in  their  theory  at  this  point.  The 
reason  is  that,  at  bottom,  the  issue  is  not  what  a  machine 
can  or  cannot  do,  but  what  physics  and  chemistry  can  or 
cannot  do  in  the  way  of  explaining  the  structure  and  be- 
haviour of  living  beings.  To  this  point  we  shall  turn  in  a 
moment.  Meanwhile,  it  is  clear  that  the  controversy  about 
machines  is  bound  to  be  indecisive,  so  long  as  the  one  party 
to  the  dispute  tends  to  shrink  the  concept  of  machine  to 

1  If  self-reproducing,  then  marrying ;  if  marrying,  then,  perhaps, 
loving;  if  self-maintaining,  then  eating;  if  eating,  then,  perhaps  en- 
joying food  and  elaborating  the  arts  of  cookery.  Why  ignore  these 
obvious  glories  of  human  machines? 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  171 

structures  which  human  beings  have  planned  and  made, 
whilst  the  other  expands  it  to  cover  every  natural  body  or 
system  of  bodies,  from  the  solar  system  to  the  human  frame.1 
Incidentally,  there  is  a  further  ambiguity  involved,  when  the 
difference  between  machines  and  organisms  is  treated  as 
coinciding  with  the  difference  between  the  "  non-living " 
(or  "  dead  ")  and  the  "  living."  The  latter  distinction  cor- 
responds properly  to  that  between  the  inorganic  and  the 
organic  in  Nature,  conceived  ad  hoc  as  exclusive  of  human 
artefacts.  The  assimilation  of  Nature  in  her  inorganic  or 
non-living  aspects — air,  sea,  mountains,  or,  more  scien- 
tifically, the  physicist's  "  matter  "  and  the  chemist's  "  ele- 
ments " — to  man-made  machines  is  utterly  inappropriate, 
for  it  looks  only  to  the  materials  of  which  the  machine  is 
constructed  and  the  forces  which  work  it,  not  to  its  struc- 
ture, i.e.,  to  the  organisation  of  these  materials  and  forces 
for  a  purpose.  In  short,  man-made  machines  are  non-living, 
considered  simply  as  material  objects,  but  they  are  organic 
like  organisms,  considered  in  respect  of  their  structure  and 
function.  Strictly,  they  do  not  fit  into  any  classification 
of  natural  bodies,  unless  we  bring  them  in,  by  an  extension 
of  the  concept  of  living  body,  as  detached  organs  (so  to 
say),  or  tools,  fashioned  by  living  bodies  for  the  more 
efficient  securing  of  their  self-maintenance. 

And  so  we  come  back  to  the  point  that  "  mechanism  " 
puts  us  on  a  false  track  if  it  leads  us  to  argue  about  what  is, 
or  is  not,  a  machine.  The  real  issue  is,  as  we  said  just  now, 
what  in  Nature  can,  and  what  cannot,  be  explained  in 
terms  of  the  concepts  of  physics  and  chemistry.  Mecha- 
nism, or  the  mechanical  theory  means,  in  short,  a  physico- 
chemical  theory.  And  "  explanation,"  as  we  need  hardly 

\Cf.  Professor  W.  T.  Marvin's  examination  of  the  argument  that 
it  is  inconceivable  that  a  machine  should  do  what  a  living  being  docs. 
Philosophical  Review,  vol.  xxvii,  no.  6,  p.  624. 


172  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

add  after  what  has  been  said  in  the  preceding  essay,  does 
not  mean  "  deducing,"  in  the  sense  of  "  predicting,"  par- 
ticular phenomena,  but  the  recognition  of  a  phenomenon, 
when  presented,  as  a  case  falling  under  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry.  Now  if  we  are  to  call  any  object  a  "  ma- 
chine," and  any  process  a  "  mechanical "  process,  so  far 
as  they  can  thus  be  treated  as  cases  for  the  application  of 
physico-chemical  theory,  then  quite  obviously  man-made 
machines  are  only  in  part  "  mechanical."  So  far  from  vio- 
lating, they  conform  to  every  physico-chemical  law  of 
which  account  has  been  taken  in  their  construction,  but 
this  "  taking  account "  of  laws  discovered  by  scientific  re- 
search can  as  little  be  formulated  in  physico-chemical 
terms,  as  can  the  purpose  which  a  machine  embodies,  or 
its  usefulness  in  the  economy  of  human  life.  And  so,  again, 
living  beings  in  general,  and  human  beings  in  particular, 
may  be  studied  as  "  physico-chemical  machines,"  to  borrow 
the  favourite  phrase  of  Loeb  and  other  enthusiastic  mecha- 
nists, but  our  mechanists  seem  to  think  that  when  they 
have  shown  that,  say,  thinking  cannot  go  on  without  physico- 
chemical  processes  in  the  brain,  they  have  shown  that  it  is 
identical  with  these  processes,  in  the  sense  of  being  "  noth- 
ing but "  such  processes  and  exhaustively  describable  in 
terms  of  them.  Against  these  mistaken  claims,  those  biolo- 
gists cannot  help  being  in  the  right  who  point  out,  that  a 
theory  based  on  actual  observation  of  the  behaviour  of  living 
beings  in  their  natural  environment,  must  yield  a  working 
concept  of  life  not  expressed  in  physico-chemical  terms. 
Thompson,  surely,  hits  off  the  actual  position  of  the  biologi- 
cal sciences  happily  and  accurately  when  he  writes:  "  For 
the  '  ordinary  naturalist ',  the  ordinary  student  of  beast  and 
bird,  specific  difference,  if  not  all  in  all,  is  the  cardinal 
concept;  for  all  he  cares,  for  all  he  sometimes  knows,  the 
tissue  and  the  cell  are  concepts  which  might  never  have 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  173 

been  devised.  The  comparative  anatomist  or  the  mor- 
phologist  deal  with  larger  units,  and  care  little  about  the  dif- 
ference between  a  blackbird  and  a  thrush,  a  robin  and  a 
wren.  The  physiologist  deals  with  still  larger  groups:  the 
cell  and  the  tissue  are  his  especial  themes,  and  most  (though 
of  course  not  all)  of  the  lessons  which  he  learns  are  ^s- 
sons  common  to  and  taught  by  the  study  of  a  very  few 
'  types  ',  such  as  man,  the  rabbit,  and  the  frog.  The  work- 
ing hypotheses  of  (say)  the  ornithologist  are  certainly  not 
mechanical,  they  are  very  largely  teleological;  the  ordinary 
working  hypotheses  of  the  physiologist  are,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  distinctly  mechanical,  and  include  and 
practically  coincide  with  those  of  the  physicist  and  the 
chemist."  This  corresponds  to  the  position  throughout  main- 
tained in  these  essays.  The  concepts  of  physics  and  chemis- 
try, being  abstract,  are  also  general;  hence,  the  living  and 
the  non-living  alike  present  "  cases  "  for  their  application. 
But  the  characteristic  appearances  of  life  in  the  structure 
and  behaviour  of  living  things  are  not  adequately  expressed 
by  such  concepts,  not  even  though,  like  Loeb,  one  put  the 
organism  "  as  a  whole  "  into  the  title  of  one's  book.1  Hen- 
derson hits  the  nail  on  the  head  so  far  as  the  characteristic 
"  pattern,"  or  "  organisation,"  of  living  beings  is  concerned, 
when  he  points  out  that  both  in  form  and  function  organisms 
possess  a  pattern,  that  the  study  of  patterns  is  ignored,  in 
the  main,  by  physics  and  chemistry,  and  therefore  by  the 
orthodox  mechanistic  philosophy  built  on  them,  and  that  "  a 
mechanistic  philosophy  which  leaves  organisation  out  is 
meaningless." 2  Why  should  we  not  be  willing  to  recognise 
that,  whilst  all  living  bodies  illustrate  and  verify  physico- 
chemical  truths,  many  of  which  have  been  discovered  only 

1  See  Jacques  Loeb,   The  Organism  as  a   Whole  from  a  Physico- 
Chemical  View-point. 

2  See  his  contribution  to  the  Mechanism  and  Vitalism  discussion  in 
Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  xxvii,  No.  6,  pp.  571-76. 


174  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

by  the  study  of  living  bodies,  yet  there  are  also  truths  to  be 
discovered  about  them  which  are  not  dreamt  of  by,  nor  ex- 
pressible in  the  language  of,  physicist  or  chemist?  Philoso- 
phy can  render  at  least  this  service  to  science  in  this  debate, 
that  it  justifies,  in  the  interests  of  systematic  knowledge, 
equally  those  who  explore  the  physico-chemical  principles 
which  are  common  to  both  the  non-living  and  the  living, 
and  those  who,  observing  the  differences  between  the  non- 
living and  the  living,  study  the  latter  as  living  and  build 
up  an  autonomous  biological  theory  with  characteristic 
concepts  and  laws  of  its  own.  We  look  for  order  in  the  uni- 
verse, but  why  should  that  order  consist  exclusively  in  prin- 
ciples of  one  kind,  and  that  kind  "  mechanical,"  in  the  sense 
of  "  physico-chemical  "  ? 

(2)  The  question  we  have  just  asked  cuts  very  deep  into 
the  contrast  between  two  points  of  view,  two  methods  of 
dealing  theoretically  with  natural  phenomena,  which  it  has 
become  fashionable  in  recent  literature  to  label,  respectively, 
"  scientific  "  and  "  romantic."  In  part  the  contrast  between 
them  is  described  as  one  between  two  tempers  of  mind;  in 
part  it  flows  from  two  different  concepts  and  ideals  of  logic. 
Let  us  consider  each  of  them  in  turn. 

(a)  The  scientific  temper  of  mind  is  commonly  identified 
with  "  naturalism  "  or  "  positivism  ",  the  romantic  with 
"  supernaturalism "  or  "  transcendentalism."  Here  is  a 
typical  utterance:  "There  have  been,  are,  and  always  will 
be,  dispositions  reluctant  to  picture  a  Universe  unsustained 
by  creative  will.  l  Creative  will '  assumes  many  phases, 
philosophically  indifferent.  It  may  be  presented  as  God  or 
gods,  entelechy,  or  vital  spark,  but  is  something  beyond  pre- 
diction or  control,  the  subject  of  observation,  not  of  experi- 
ment. Belief  in  it  is  an  expression  at  once  of  man's  humility 
and  of  man's  pride;  an  admission  of  the  limits  of  our  in- 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  175 

telligence,  and  a  soothing  exaltation  of  what  is  beyond  our 
intelligence  " — thus  Dr.  P.  Chalmers  Mitchell,  the  fourth 
of  the  Aristotelian  symposiasts.  The  same  contrast  between 
temperaments,  dispositions,  motives  is  insisted  upon,  among 
the  leaders  of  the  discussion  of  the  American  Philosophical 
Association,  by  Professor  W.  T.  Marvin.1  He  opposes 
"  modern  science  "  to  "  modern  romanticism  ";  the  belief 
that  the  Universe  is  "  logically  continuous  "  and,  ultimately, 
"  mathematical,"  to  the  belief  that  the  universe  is  "  alogi- 
cal  "  and  best  described  "  in  such  pre-scientific  language  as 
that  of  the  layman,  the  poet,  and  the  animist."  The  ideal 
of  logical  continuity  requires,  according  to  his  analysis,  as 
the  main  principles  of  scientific  method,  (i)  determinism; 
(2)  analysis  of  the  complex  into  the  simple;  (3)  the  paucity, 
and  (4)  the  mutual  independence  of  the  ultimate  simples. 
The  result  is  the  ideal  of  a  logical  order  of  sciences 
amounting  to  one  single  deductive  science,  "  in  which  all  the 
special  sciences  or  bodies  of  explanation  follow  from  logi- 
cally prior  sciences  and  these  ultimately  from  mathematical 
sciences."  Into  such  a  scheme,  a  vitalistic  theory  after  the 
manner  of  Driesch  or  Bergson  will  not  fit.  The  elan  vital, 
the  "  entelechy,"  cannot  be  "  explained,"  i.e.,  deduced  from 
physico-chemical  premises.  They  can  only  be  "  intuited." 
They  are  "  indeterministic."  They  are  incurably  "  roman- 
tic "  concepts.  They  are  the  modern  descendants  of  primi- 
tive magic  and  animism.  Indeed,  their  vice  goes  deeper 
still.  It  is  not  merely  intellectual,  it  is  moral.  These 
theories  offend,  not  merely  by  being  unscientific,  but  by 
being  demoralising.  They  are  symptoms  of  "weakness, 
fatigue,  dependence,  waywardness,  and  failure,"  whereas 
the  scientific  attitude  is  one  of  "  vigour,  independence,  and 
mastery."  They  are  the  creed  of  the  "  quitter  "  who  wants 
peace  and  rest  through  reliance  on  non-human  powers,  in 

1  Philosophical  Review,  vol.  xxvii,  No.  6,  pp.  616-627. 


i;6  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

short,  on  a  protecting  deity,  whereas  science  calls  to  man 
to  be  a  master  of  his  destiny,  and  preaches  "  the  religion 
of  effort,  and  of  self-confidence." * 

This  reading  of  science  as  expressive  of  a  particular  in- 
tellectual and  moral  disposition  which  is  to  be  contrasted 
with,  and  valued  more  highly  than,  the  poetical,  romantic, 
religious  disposition,  is  still  so  common,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  at  variance  with  the  point  of  view  maintained  in 
these  essays,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  disentangle  the  truth 
from  the  bias  in  this  whole  estimate,  especially  in  order  to 
bring  clearly  into  the  focus  of  the  discussion  what  is,  at 
bottom,  the  one  issue  of  genuine  philosophical  interest,  viz., 
what  method  of  saving  the  appearances  realises  best  the 
ideal  of  "  logical  continuity." 

Now  the  antithesis  of  "  naturalism  "  or  "  science  ",  and 
"  supernaturalism  "  or  "  animism  ",  especially  when  con- 
sidered in  the  context  of  the  history  of  our  civilisation,  is 
justified  up  to  a  point,  viz.,  as  a  statement  of  the  fact  that 
physics  and  chemistry  have  achieved  their  "  autonomy " 
(as  we  have  called  it)  as  sciences  precisely  by  their  em- 
ancipation from  animistic  and  theological  principles  of  ex- 

1  Cf.  loc  cit.,  "  If  science  wins,  the  world  will  prove  to  be  one  in 
which  man  is  thrown  entirely  upon  his  own  resources  and  skill,  upon 
his  self-control,  courage,  and  strength,  and  perhaps  upon  his  ability 
to  be  happy  by  adjusting  himself  to  pitiless  fact.  If  science  fails, 
there  is  room  for  the  childlike  hope  that  unseen  powers  may  come 
to  the  relief  of  human  weakness.  If  science  wins,  the  world  is  the 
necessary  consequences  of  logically  related  facts,  and  man's  enter- 
prise, in  Huxley's  figure  of  speech,  is  the  playing  of  a  game  of  chess 
against  an  opponent  who  himself  never  errs  and  never  overlooks  our 
errors.  If  science  fails,  the  world  resembles  fairyland,  as  matter 
of  great  anthropological  and  psychological  importance;  and  man's  en- 
terprise either  is  no  longer  a  task  for  skill  and  knowledge  or  is 
conditioned  by  the  '  goodness '  of  man's  will  or  is  in  part  a  game  of 
luck.  Historically  considered,  the  wish  behind  the  belief  in  the  vic- 
tory of  science  is  the  motive  prominently  manifested  in  civilization 
in  general,  and  in  particular  in  vigorous,  progressive,  and  youthful 
periods  of  history;  whereas  the  wish  behind  the  belief  in  the  defeat  of 
science  is  the  motive  markedly  manifested  in  a  people's  childhood  and 
old  age,  in  general  in  savagedom  and  in  periods  of  decadence  or 
defeat." 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  177 

planation.  The  "  mechanical  theory  of  nature  "  is  nothing 
but  the  triumphant  declaration  of  this  autonomy,  its  magna 
charta,  its  bill  of  rights.  The  ramifications  of  this  develop- 
ment in  the  history  of  European  thought  are  as  wide-spread 
as  they  are  often  subtle  and  indirect.  With  almost  theatrical 
eclat  it  is  advertised  in  Laplace's  famous  retort  to  Napo- 
leon I,  "  Sir,  I  have  no  need  of  that  hypothesis  ",  viz.,  the 
hypothesis  of  God  for  the  explanation  of  the  solar  system. 
More  subtly  it  appears  in  the  way  in  which  the  fundamental 
concepts  of  the  mechanical  theory  have  been  stripped  of 
all  anthropomorphic  colouring.  "  Cause  "  no  longer  con- 
notes "  activity  ",  but  only  "  invariable  succession  "  or 
"  uniformity  of  correlation  according  to  law  ".  A  fortiori, 
there  has  disappeared,  along  with  "  activity  ",  all  reference 
to  "  will  ",  and  through  will,  to  "  purpose  ",  "  design  ",  "  in- 
telligence ".  Moreover,  this  tendency  has  operated,  not  only 
in  the  direction  of  the  extrusion  of  "  God  ",  but,  what  is 
perhaps  more  remarkable,  it  has  deepened  the  dualistic 
breach  between  body  and  soul,  matter  and  consciousness. 
Animal  and  human  minds  are,  in  themselves,  far  less  ob- 
jectionable to  the  mechanist  than  either  an  omnipotent 
divine  creator,  or  capricious  spirits  or  demons  which  are 
supposed  to  manifest  themselves  in  all  natural  phenomena, 
and  are  but  precariously  controllable  by  prayer,  sacrifice, 
and  incantation.  Compared  with  these,  human  "  souls  ",  at 
any  rate,  seem  facts  of  normal,  natural  experience.  But 
even  they  remain  awkward  appendages  to  the  mechanistic 
universe,  and  many  are  the  devices  for  making  that  universe 
immune  against  them,  for  sterilising  them  as  it  were,  and 
avoiding  at  all  costs  the  necessity  of  admitting  their  effi- 
ciency as  verae  causae.  The  fear  seems  to  be  that,  if  con- 
sciousness is  admitted  to  be  effective  anywhere,  to  be 
among  the  causal  antecedents  of  any  physical  changes,  it 
may,  in  principle,  be  effective  everywhere.  Hence  safety 


178  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

is  sought  by  excluding  it  root  and  branch.  Thus  we  get 
Thompson's  striking  exclusion  of  "  consciousness "  from 
the  field  of  biology.  Thus  arises  the  fashion,  generally  pre- 
vailing among  all  who  approach  biological  problems  from 
the  physico-chemical  side,  of  confessing  incompetence  to  dis- 
cuss consciousness,  and  then  proceeding  as  if  there  were  no 
such  thing  at  all  concerned  in  the  phenomena  under  dis- 
cussion. Thus  we  get  the  steam-whistle  theory  of  conscious- 
ness,1 more  politely  known  as  epiphenomenalism.  Thus  we 
get  psycho-physical  parallelism,  combined  in  disorderly 
union  with  a  belief  in  the  "  continuity  "  of  evolution.  Thus 
we  get  Loeb's  thrilling  programme  of  showing  us — it  is 
"  only  a  question  of  time " — that  sex  with  its  poetry, 
mother-love  with  its  felicity  and  suffering,  the  pride  of  good 
workmanship,  the  struggle  for  justice  and  truth,  the  enjoy- 
ment of  human  fellowship  are,  as  instincts,  akin  to  the 
tropisms  of  plants  and  animals,  and  open  to  a  purely  phy- 
sico-chemical explanation.2  The  logical  analyst  chimes  in 
from  his  own  angle.  "  To  the  logical  analyst  souls  seem 
round  squares.  They  are  complex  yet  simple.  They  have 
structure  but  remain  unities.  They  are  wholes  without 
parts.  They  are  creative  agents  but  need  no  fuel  .  .  . "  3 
The  net  result  is  the  curious  one  that,  consciousness  having 
been  either  denied  outright,  or  ignored,  or  politely  segre- 
gated, the  remainder  of  the  phenomena  of  life  is  handed 


1  See  Huxley,  Collected  Essays,  vol.  i,  p.  240.     It  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  commonly  noted  that  Huxley's  inference  to  the  epiphe- 
nomenal  character  of  consciousness,  from  the  fact  that  a  decerebrated 
frog  behaves  as   froggishly  without  consciousness  as  with  it,  proves 
much   more  obviously,  not  the   superfluity  of  consciousness,   but  the 
superfluity  of  the  cerebrum.    It  eliminates  the  function  of  the  whistle- 
machinery  far  more  conclusively  than  it  eliminates  the  whistle-sound. 
The  one  thing  which  the  experiments  referred  to  by  Huxley  show 
quite  clearly  is  that  the  cerebrum  is  not  necessary  for  the  performance 
of   certain   reflex-actions.     On   the   relation   of   consciousness   to   the 
cerebrum  they  throw  no  light  whatever. 

2  See  The  Mechanistic  Conception  of  Life,  pp.  30,  1. 
s  W.  T.  Marvin,  loc.  cit.,  p.  621. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  179 

over,  sub  voce  "  body ",  to  physics  and  chemistry,  and 
biology  as  an  autonomous  science  disappears.  It  becomes 
a  special  case  of  physics  and  chemistry.  This  is  bound  to 
be  always  the  result  of  the  application  to  biological  phe- 
nomena of  the  rigid  matter-mind  dualism.  The  mechani- 
cal sciences,  in  this  division,  claim  the  substantial  body  and 
all  its  works;  psychology  gets  the  unsubstantial  anima  and 
all  its  fire-works;  and  the  human  being,  if  enough  of  a 
philosopher  to  remember  the  need  for  a  synthesis,  is  left 
to  contemplate  himself  with  amazement  as  a  mysterious 
conjunction  of  a  soulless  "  machine  "-body  with  a  body- 
less  "  ghost  "-soul. 

With  the  question  of  the  proper  way  to  "  save  "  the  ap- 
pearances which  we  call  souls,  or  minds,  we  shall  be  con- 
cerned in  another  essay.1  Here  it  is  only  necessary  to 
reduce  these  extravagances  to  their  due  bounds.  They  over- 
shoot anything  that  was  necessary  to  check  the  unscientific 
abuse  of  souls  as  principles  of  explanation — the  ignava 
ratio  of  regarding  any  given  phenomenon  as  made  suffi- 
ciently intelligible  by  saying  that  God,  or  man,  or  beast, 
or  devil,  wanted  it  just  so.  From  "  just  so  "  stories  of  this 
sort  the  progress  of  science  continues  to  emancipate  us, 
though  we  should  have  more  reason  to  be  proud  of  the  fact 
that  we  are  leaving  off  telling  tales,  if  the  sciences  did  not 
occasionally  produce  myths  of  their  own. 

Reduced  to  its  proper  proportions,  then,  the  mechanical 
theory  of  Nature  is  nothing  but  the  charter  of  autonomy  for 
the  physico-chemical  sciences.  But,  emphatically,  it  does 
not  amount  to  the  declaration  that  all  phenomena  in  the 
order  of  "  Nature  ",  or  in  the  wider  order  of  the  "  Uni- 
verse ",  are  exclusively  physico-chemical  in  character. 
Order  demands  the  recognition  of  differences  as  much  as  the 
recognition  of  identities.  "  Mechanism  "  secures  the  right 

1  See  the  following  Essay,  Ch.  viii. 


i8o  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

of  the  physical  sciences  to  eliminate  from  among  their  con- 
cepts, or  working-hypotheses,  all  reference  to  will,  purpose, 
design,  intelligence.  As  thus  excluded,  these  may  be  called 
"  supernatural ",  and  even  a  human  mind  is,  in  this  sense, 
supernatural.  But  this  device  can,  assuredly,  not  be  inter- 
preted as  denying  that  there  are  other  strata,  higher  orders 
of  phenomena,  in  the  system  of  the  universe,  in  the  analysis 
of  which  these,  and  other,  terms  may  have  their  proper 
place,  supplementing  and  completing,  not  contradicting  or 
destroying,  the  account  given  by  the  mechanical  sciences. 
Mechanism,  in  short,  is  right  as  a  protest  against  confusion 
of  categories,  wrong  in  denying  the  legitimacy  of  all  cate- 
gories other  than  its  own.  Its  advantages,  and  its  justifica- 
tion, are  that,  within  its  own  field  of  phenomena,  it  has 
substituted,  to  put  it  briefly,  the  notion  of  "  law  "  for  that 
of  incalculable  "  will  "  or  capricious  "  purpose  ".  As  a 
heuristic  method  of  investigation  this  change  has  been  of 
incalculable  value.  It  has  opened  the  way  to  that  observa- 
tional and  experimental  procedure  to  which  modern  science 
owes  its  triumphs.  It  has  replaced  the  question  "  why?  " 
by  the  question  "  how?  ".  It  has  led  to  the  formulation  of 
uniformities  of  correlation  between  phenomena,  and  to  that 
"  experimental  determinism "  which  demands  that  every 
observed  difference  in  phenomena  be  shown  to  be  connected, 
according  to  some  general  law,  with  other  observed  differ- 
ences. It  has  led  to  measurement,  and  the  statement  of  cor- 
relations in  precise  quantitative  terms.  It  has  supplied  the 
natural  sciences  with  a  programme  of  research,  the  inex- 
haustibleness  of  which  is  brought  home  to  us  with  every 
fresh  complexity  which  keener  investigation  reveals.  All 
this  has  its  rightful  place  in  the  order  of  the  universe  and 
the  order  of  knowledge,  and  there  is  no  need  to  say  that 
because  this  is  right  and  good,  every  other  point  of  view, 
every  other  ratio  cogitandi  about  the  world,  provided  it  does 


CH.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  181 

not  deny  this  mechanical  ratio  on  its  own  ground,  is  wrong 
and  bad.  We  can  smile  at  the  kaffir-tribe,  reported  by 
Dudley  Kidd,  which,  when  drought  threatened  to  destroy  its 
fields  and  flocks,  asked  a  neighbouring  missionary  to  go 
forth  with  his  umbrella,  though  even  here  we  can  perceive 
a  crude  attempt  at  correlating  phenomena.  We  are  well  rid 
of  the  belief,  and  the  practices  built  on  the  belief,  that  by 
charms  and  sacrifices  we  can  influence  natural  events,  or 
rather  avert  the  wrath  or  secure  the  good  will  of  the  spirits 
supposed  to  manifest  themselves  in  natural  events.  But 
it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  religion  is  a  superstitious 
survival  of  primitive  animism.  All  that  follows  is  that  we 
need  another  kind  of  theology,  a  better  knowledge  of  God. 
It  does  not  follow  that  there  are  not  phenomena  properly, 
and  even  scientifically,  dealt  with  in  terms  of  "  life  "  or  of 
"  consciousness ",  though  it  does  follow  that  we  need  a 
better  knowledge  of  these  in  their  place  in  the  articulate 
order  of  the  universe.  There  is  nothing  in  the  physico- 
chemical  theory  of  "  matter  "  which  excludes,  though  it  is 
equally  true  that  there  is  nothing  in  that  theory  which  posi- 
tively supports,  such  speculative  hypotheses  as  that  of  Berg- 
son  concerning  the  origin  of  matter  through  the  slackening 
of  the  elan  vital,  or  the  theory  mooted  by  thinkers  as  diverse 
as  Charles  Peirce  and  James  Ward,  that  physico-chemical 
correlations,  as  uniformities,  are  analogous  to  "  habits  " — 
once  plastic  choices,  now  petrified  routine.  The  mechanical 
sciences  have  no  use  for  such  speculations,  but  are  they 
therefore  entitled  to  debar  them  by  an  intolerant  censorship 
from  the  thinking  of  men  in  general?  Even  a  "  personal- 
istic  "  interpretation  of  Nature  is  not  in  conflict  with  the 
mechanical  theory,  unless  that  theory  is  illegitimately  taken 
as  claiming  that  nothing  can  possibly  be  true  except  what 
it  says. 

With  these  remarks  we  may  leave  the  more  extravagant 


i8a  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

manifestations  of  the  bias  against  "  romanticism "  and 
"  supernaturalism  ".  For,  after  all,  they  but  avert  attention 
from  the  really  important  problem  of  method,  viz.,  how  to 
reconcile  the  demand  for  "  logical  continuity "  with  the 
recognition  of  unique  differences  in  the  order  of  nature. 

(b)  This  issue  is  a  technical,  a  "  logical  ",  one.  Contin- 
uity means,  at  bottom,  identity.  Identity  is  commonly 
taken  as  requiring  that  all  phenomena,  however  different 
at  first  sight,  shall  to  a  deeper  understanding  reveal  them- 
selves as  being  of  the  same  sort,  or,  to  put  it  differently, 
cases  of  the  same  principle.  They  shall  differ,  in  the  last 
resort,  only  as  sets  of  values  for  the  variables  of  a  mathe- 
matical formula  differ,  which  all  "  satisfy  "  the  formula. 
The  differences  between  the  sets  of  values  have  no  signi- 
ficance beyond  making  it  possible  to  discriminate  any  one 
from  any  other  one.  Beyond  that,  the  only  thing  which 
matters  is  that  they  should  alike  be  cases  of  the  same  func- 
tional correlation.  The  carrying-out  of  such  a  programme 
as  Professor  Marvin,  among  many  others,  advocates l  ap- 
pears to  depend  wholly  on  whether  the  differences  between 
the  phenomena  in  the  universe  are  differences  simply  of  this 
mathematical  sort.  //  they  are  not,  some  other  method  of 
holding  differences  within  the  grip  of  an  identity  will  have 
to  be  sought;  that  they  are  not,  appears  to  be  shown  clearly 
by  the  difficulty  which  mathematicians  find  when  they  try 
to  apply  their  logical  apparatus  to  empirical  data.  In  one 
way  or  another,  they  are  compelled  to  acknowledge  a  gap, 
an  incommensurability,  between  a  priori  and  a  posteriori 
knowledge.  The  identification  of  empirical  data  as 
"  values  ",  or  "  cases  ",  of  functions  laid  down  a  priori  has 
about  it  something  precarious  and  arbitrary.  All-too-fre- 
quently,  the  empirical  shows  itself  to  be  "  alogical ",  by 

1  See  above,  p.  175. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  183 

refusing  to  fit  into  the  neat  patterns  prepared  for  its  recep- 
tion. Whence,  according  to  the  thinker's  mood  and  disposi- 
tion, result  disparagements  of  the  intellect  (vide  Bergson) 
or  of  the  world  of  experience  (vide  Russell).  In  any  case, 
in  the  face  of  this  gap,  who  can  genuinely  hope  to  be  able 
to  "  deduce  "  empirical  details  from  abstract  a  priori  gen- 
eralities? 

But  quite  apart  from  such  unsubstantiated  dreams  of 
deductions,  is  even  an  ex-post-jacto  unification  of  science 
along  these  lines  possible?  Can  we  conceive  the  sciences 
which  we  actually  have,  as  allowing  themselves  to  be  ordered 
in  a  single  comprehensive  scheme  on  the  principle  of 
logical  "  priority  "  and  "  posteriority  " — such  that  the  prior 
science  furnishes  the  premises  from  which  the  posterior 
sciences  "  follow  "?  Until  some  more  definite  and  convinc- 
ing progress  towards  carrying  out  this  ambitious  aspiration 
has  been  made  than  can,  so  far,  be  exhibited  for  inspection, 
it  must  remain  an  open  question  whether  we  are  here  deal- 
ing with  a  legitimate  ideal  or  a  will-o'-the-wisp.  And,  if 
there  is  any  value  in  our  concept  of  the  "  autonomy  "  of 
each  science,  and  any  truth  in  the  account  given  in  the 
preceding  essay,  of  the  super-ordination  of  phenomena,  the 
evidence  would  seem  to  be  against  the  possibility  of  the 
unification  dreamt  of  by  the  "  logical  analyst  ". 

But,  apart  from  this  debatable  possibility  of  exhibiting 
all  sciences  as  branches  of  a  single  stem  of  deductive  theory, 
there  is  in  the  proposed  "  reduction  "  of  biology  to  physics 
and  chemistry,  and  in  the  "  explanation  "  of  the  phenomena 
of  life  in  terms  of,  i.e.,  as  cases  of,  physico-chemical  laws, 
another  point  of  great  logical  interest  which  more  positively 
supports  the  view  taken  in  these  pages. 

To  "  understand  "  anything — what  is  this  but  to  perceive, 
or  appreciate,  the  "  universal "  in  it?  It  is  only  to  the 
mind  which  grasps  the  "  universal "  that  the  particular  be- 


i84  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.VII 

comes  "  intelligible  ".  Hence  the  importance  for  knowledge 
of  "  generalisation  ".  A  general  "  rule  ",  a  scientific  "  law  ", 
furnish  us  with  the  most  obvious  and  familiar  instances  of 
this  power  of  universals  to  make  large,  and  in  their  sensuous 
detail  often  widely  diverse,  masses  of  facts  intelligible. 
They  draw  attention  to  the  common  character  of  the  many 
diverse  particulars.  They  unify;  they  very  literally  iden- 
tify differences.  Hence  the  intellectual  achievement,  the 
advance  in  knowledge,  involved  in  every  discovery  of  a  law, 
and  even  more  in  the  extension  of  it  to  a  fresh  field.  To 
recognise  some  group  of  phenomena  which  are,  prima  facie, 
very  different  from  those  of  another  group,  as  cases  of  the 
same  sort,  permitting  the  application  of  the  same  principles, 
is  a  contribution  of  the  first  order  to  the  unification  of 
knowledge.  No  wonder  that,  pressing  along  this  line,  the 
ideal  of  achieving  the  maximum  of  generalisation  should 
have  been  set  up  and  pursued.  It  is  a  legitimate  ideal,  but 
the  method  of  research  to  which  it  gives  rise  is  subject  to 
strict  limitations,  and,  used  by  itself,  it  leads  to  "  abstrac- 
tion ",  i.e.,  to  a  levelling,  or  assimilating,  of  differences 
which  ought  to  be  recognised  in  their  characteristic  unique- 
ness and  retained  in  an  order  of  super-imposed  "  levels  "  or 
"  strata  ".  This  is  precisely  the  point  involved  in  the  argu- 
ment of  the  preceding  essay,  that  the  physico-chemical 
analysis  of  living  things  must,  perforce,  ignore  precisely  what 
is  characteristically  "  living  "  about  them.  In  short,  the  sav- 
ing of  appearances  requires  chiefly  a  saving  of  differences 
from  being  completely  swallowed  up  by  the  "  another-case- 
of-the-same-sort  "  or  the  "  nothing-but-so-and-so  "  method. 
In  the  language  of  the  logicians,  commonly  called  "  ideal- 
ist ",  we  require  not  only  universals  of  the  "  abstract  "  type 
of  the  general  law  applicable  to  a  range  of  cases  which,  for 
all  their  differences  from  each  other,  count  as  being  all  of 
the  same  sort,  but  we  require  also  universals  of  the  "  con- 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  185 

crete  "  type  of  the  individual  "  system  ",  or  "  world  ",  to 
be  analysed  on  the  homely  principle  that  it  "  takes  all  sorts 
to  make  a  world  'V  To  follow  the  track  of  universals  is 
always  to  recognise  identity  in  difference,  but  we  may  do  so 
either  by  forming  "  classes  "  of  "  cases  "  of  the  "  same 
sort ",  or  by  discerning  "  systems  ",  "  wholes  ",  "  struc- 
tures "  (or  whatever  else  we  may  call  them)  into  which 
elements  of  diverse  sorts  enter  as  constituents,  and  in  which 
they  acquire  new  functions  and  often  exhibit  new  proper- 
ties.2 The  universe,  or  cosmos,  is  obviously  such  a  system, 
and  the  differences  in  it  must  be  preserved  by  showing  how 
the  higher  are  conditioned  by  the  lower,  without  being  there- 
fore reducible  to,  i.e.,  identifiable  with,  the  lower  in  the  way 
we  call  "  being  of  the  same  sort ".  Once  we  enter  upon 
this  path,  we  must,  of  course,  expect  intellectual  adventures, 
and  some  philosophers  hold  back  because  they  do  not  like 
the  adventures  that  await  them.  For  the  workkig  methods 
of  the  logical  analyst  will  no  longer  prove  wholly  adequate. 
New  levels  of  phenomena  will  have  to  be  recognised  and 
dealt  with  in  their  own  terms.  Synthesis  as  well  as  analysis 
will  be  required — a  synoptic  insight  such  as,  innocent  of 
any  deep  philosophical  issues,  we  all  currently  rely  on 
in  perceiving  the  identity  of  a  person,  or  of  a  people,  in 
their  many-sided  interests  and  activities.  In  general,  it 
may  be  said  that  the  emphasis  on  "  law  "  is  the  character- 
istic of  "  abstract "  science,  and,  more  widely,  of  the  spirit 
of  generalisation  by  the  ignoring,  or  levelling,  of  differences, 
whilst  emphasis  on  "  system  "  as  an  actual  "  whole  "  func- 

1  Cf.,  on  this  whole  distinction,  B.  Bosanquet,  The  Principle  of  In- 
dividuality and  Value,  especially  Lectures  II  and  III;  and  Logic,  2nd 
edition,  passim. 

2  The  concepts   of   "  integration  "   or   "  organisation ",  as   employed, 
e.g.,  by  E.  B.  Holt,  in  Response  and  Cognition   (The  Freudian   Wish, 
pp.!53ff.),  appear  to  meet  this  requirement.     The  critical  point  is  the 
admission  that  the  "  whole  "  formed  by  the  organisation  of  the  parts 
"  now  does  things  which  the  isolated  parts  never  did  or  could  do " 
(p.  154). 


186  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.  VII 

tioning  through  differentiated  "  parts  ",  is  the  characteristic 
of  "  concrete  "  philosophy,  of  the  spirit  of  unification  by 
"  saving  "  differences  whilst  acknowledging  the  conditions 
necessary  to  their  existence. 

In  short,  the  former,  "  scientific,"  method,  seeks  logical 
continuity  by  the  way  of  "  abstract "  identity;  the  latter, 
•'*  philosophical  ",  method  does  so  by  the  way  of  "  concrete  " 
or  systematic  identity.  And,  on  the  technical  side,  this 
rather  than  the  antithesis  of  positivism  and  romanticism 
constitutes  the  philosophically  important  divergence  be- 
tween the  two  methods. 

(3)  The  third  problem  on  our  list,  that  of  the  empirical 
evidence  for  teleology,  as  applied  to  the  facts  of  life,  may 
be  stated  in  a  way  which  presents  a  genuine  difficulty  for 
the  view  here  advocated.  Intellectual  honesty  compels 
equally  a  frank  formulation  of  the  difficulty  and  a  frank 
confession,  that  the  solution  here  adopted  is  not  one  to 
which  mere  argument  can  compel  those  to  assent  who  do 
not  see  their  way  to  it.  We  are  face  to  face,  in  short, 
with  one  of  those  ultimate  problems  on  which  human  beings 
seem  bound  to  differ  in  their  interpretations,  making  in- 
stinctively or  reflectively  one  of  those  fundamental  choices, 
which  lead  some  to  characterise  the  position  adopted  as  an 
"  article  of  faith  ",  or  a  "  postulate  ",  or  an  "  assumption  ", 
or  an  "  affirmation  of  the  will ",  and  which  lend  colour  to 
the  view  that  differences  in  philosophical  theories  spring 
from  differences  of  "  temperament  "  and  "  disposition  ". 
But,  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous  essay,1  to  admit  all 
this  is  not  to  admit  that  such  choices  are  unreasoned  or 
unreasonable.  Though  argument  may  not  produce  agree- 
ment on  these  ultimate  issues,  still  they  are  arguable,  or  at 
least  comparable  with  each  other  by  argument.  And  such 
1  See  Chapter  III. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  187 

argument  helps  each  thinker  to  make  clear  to  himself  and 
others  the  grounds  of  his  choice,  and  to  realise,  from  the 
very  difference  between  his  choice  and  that  of  others,  that 
there  is  some  limitation  or  idiosyncrasy  in  his  own.  As 
philosophers  we  reason  to  the  best  of  our  power  on  these 
issues,  but  in  reasoning  we  must  have  something  to  reason 
with.  It  is  because  philosophers  differ  in  these  materials 
of  their  vision,  that  the  resulting  theory  or  interpretation 
is  for  each  the  view  he  must  reasonably  take,  and  yet 
different  from  the  views  to  which  others  are  as  reason- 
ably led. 

The  relation  of  mechanism  and  teleology  presents  pre- 
cisely such  a  problem  in  which  ultimate  choices  come  into 
play — choices  in  which  thinkers  sum  up  the  total  impres- 
sions gathered  from  their  acquaintance  with  the  world  and 
their  efforts  to  trace  the  order,  and  read  the  meaning,  of 
its  infinitely  varied  spectacle.  Teleology,  as  we  argued  in> 
the  preceding  essay,  introduces  the  concept  of  value.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  mechanism  all  value-predicates  are  out 
of  place:  only  facts,  and  the  causal  correlations  of  facts, 
engage  our  interest.  But,  as  we  put  it,  a  causal  nexus  can 
sometimes  also  be  read  as  a  nexus  of  means  and  end.  Where 
B  requires  A  as  the  condition  of  its  own  existence,  there, 
provided  B  has  value,  we  can  reasonably  say  that  B  is 
that  for  the  sake  of  which  A  exists. 

If  this  theory  of  the  relation  of  teleology  to  mechanism 
is  not  to  lead  us  seriously  astray,  two  qualifications  would 
seem  to  be  required  as  safeguards.  The  concept  of  value 
is  a  dangerous  thing  and  easily  misused.  Hence  it  is  well 
to  remind  ourselves,  (a)  that  it  should  not  be  used  as  an 
argument  against  determinism.  The  suspicion  with  which 
teleology  often  meets,  springs  from  the  fear  that  it  is  the 
thin  end  of  the  wedge  of  indeterminism.  It  is  thought  that 
when  once  we  begin  to  value  facts  as  good  or  bad,  we  shall 


i88  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

presently  slip  into  saying  that  they  would  have  been  better, 
had  they  been  different,  and  end  by  arguing  that,  because 
they  would  have  been  better  otherwise,  therefore  they  could 
have  been  otherwise.  Whereas,  for  determinism,  every  fact 
is  "  necessary  ",  i.e.,  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise  than 
it  is  in  its  actual  context.  The  teleological  point  of  view,  as 
understood  in  these  pages,  implies  no  such  retrospective  in- 
determinism.  And  (b)  it  does  not  set  up  the  untenable 
claim  that  we  can  show  of  any  and  every  particular  detail, 
picked  at  random  out  of  the  system,  just  how  and  why  it 
is  good,  either  as  a  means  or  as  an  end.  It  bases  its  appeal, 
so  to  speak,  on  broader  effects.  Its  position  is,  perhaps,  best 
appreciated  by  putting  to  oneself  the  question,  whether,  as 
one  surveys  the  order  of  appearances — matter,  life,  mind; 
or,  more  concretely,  the  inorganic  world,  the  world  of 
plants  and  animals,  the  human  world  with  its  achievements 
not  only  in  material  civilisation,  but  in  art,  science,  social 
organisation,  friendship,  and  love — one  does  not  appreciate 
and  recognise,  going  up  the  scale,  a  value  which  the  lower 
levels  lack,  or  in  which  they  share  only  as  necessary  con- 
ditions of  the  things  which  are  worthwhile  for  their  own 
sakes.1 

Now  it  is  precisely  here  that  we  must  admit  that  the 
making  of  this  experiment  does  not  yield  the  same  result 
for  everybody.  It  calls  for  a  comparison  of  total  impres- 
sions which  an  infinite  variety  of  detail  has  gone  to  form 
in  each  thinker's  personal  experience,  and  the  resulting 
estimates  are  bound  to  differ.  The  most  we  can  do  is  to 
consider  a  few  of  the  most  typical,  in  order  to  make  sure 
that  we  have  not  wholly  omitted  or  ignored  the  facts  on 
which  they  rest. 

*  The  reader  would  do  well  to  compare  my  inadequate  statement  of 
this  argument  with  the  fuller  presentation  of  it  by  B.  Bosanquet, 
Logic,  2nd  edit.,  vol.  ii,  pp.  218-223. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  189 

There  are,  at  least,  three  chief  ways  in  which  our  tele- 
ological  argument  may  be  met.  (i)  It  may  be  denied  out- 
right that  there  is  anything  of  value  in  the  existence  of  either 
life  or  mind.  Or  (2)  whilst  life  and  mind  are  admitted 
to  be  values,  it  may  be  denied  that  nature  can  be  inter- 
preted as  existing  for  their  sake.  Or  (3)  values  may  be 
regarded  as  purely  "  subjective  ",  as,  so  to  speak,  the  mere 
shadows  cast  by  natural  instincts,  hence  as  offering  no 
basis  for  an  objective  teleology  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
world. 

(i)  Those  who  take  the  first  position  commonly  accept 
the  current  standards  of  value,  but  maintain  that,  as  meas- 
ured by  them,  the  overwhelming  impression  to  be  gathered 
from  experience  is  one  of  disvalue.  Life,  they  say,  is  ugly, 
brutal,  cruel,  ruthless.  Hunger  and  lust  are  its  driving- 
forces.  Struggle  is  its  key-note — a  struggle  for  food;  a 
struggle  for  mates;  a  struggle  against  the  forces  of  the  in- 
organic universe  ever  threatening  it  with  extinction;  a 
struggle  against  rival  forms  of  life,  parasites  and  enemies, 
large  and  small ;  a  struggle  even  against  living  fellows  of  the 
same  kind.  To  live  is  to  prey  on  other  life:  its  law  is  the 
law  of  the  jungle,  "  kill  or  be  killed  ".  The  general  verdict 
on  life  must  be  that  which  Hobbes  passed  on  men's  existence 
in  the  supposed  state  of  nature: — "  nasty,  short,  and  brut- 
ish ".  And  when  this  sort  of  critic  turns  from  plant-life 
and  animal-life  to  human-life,  where  his  moralising  judg- 
ment is  more  obviously  in  place,  he  finds  abundant  material 
in  every  direction  for  painting  a  picture  in  dark  colours. 
The  selfishness,  the  stupidity,  the  viciousness,  meanness,  per- 
versity of  human  beings,  whether  taken  individually  or 
collectively,  in  all  their  ramifications  and  remoter  conse- 
quences, may  well  furnish  a  theme  for  pessimistic  eloquence, 
and  justify  the  conclusion  that,  if  this  is  the  crowning 
achievement  of  the  universe  by  which  above  all  else  it  is  to 


igo  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

be  judged,  nothing  but  indignant  condemnation  deserves  to 
be  its  portion.1 

1  (2)  From  this  extreme  denial  of  any  value,  not  only  to 
life  in  general,  but  even  to  the  manifestations  of  the  human 
spirit,  we  turn  to  the  second  position  which  admits  that 
there  are  things  of  great  and  intrinsic  value,  especially  in 
the  endeavours  and  creations  of  men,  but  denies  that  in 
the  context  of  the  universe  they  are  anything  but  happy  ac- 
cidents destined,  after  a  transient  bloom,  to  total  extinction. 
It  is  the  familiar  argument  from  the  prospective  annihila- 
tion, not  only  of  human  civilisation,  but  of  all  organic  life 
on  this  earth.  With  various  expressions  of  this  point  of 
view,  and  various  reactions  to  it,  we  have  already  met  in  a 
preceding  essay.2  Here  we  may  illustrate  it  by  another  utter- 
ance: "  It  is  conceivable  that  man  and  his  works  and  all  the 
higher  forms  of  animal  life  should  be  utterly  destroyed; 
that  mountain-regions  should  be  converted  into  ocean 
depths;  the  floors  of  oceans  raised  into  mountains;  and  the 
earth  become  a  scene  of  horror  which  even  the  lurid  fancy 
of  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse  would  fail  to  portray.  And 
yet,  to  the  eye  of  science,  there  would  be  no  more  disorder 
here  than  in  the  sabbatical  peace  of  a  summer  sea." 

(3)  The  third  position  is  perhaps  the  one  most  insidi- 
ously and  plausibly  antagonistic  to  our  view.  It  is  to  be 
found  in  that  ethical  naturalism,  for  which  calling  a  thing 
"  good  "  is  only  a  way  of  saying  that  it  is  being  desired,  for 
which  values  are  functions  of  instinctive  needs.  All  living 
things  cling  to  life;  hence  the  theory  that  life  is  worth  liv- 
ing is  but  the  mirage  of  value  with  which  reflection  justifies 
the  primitive  instinct  of  self-preservation.  That  mind, 
surveying  itself,  should  find  itself  good,  and  extend  its 

1  For  a  vivid  and  impressive  presentation  of  the  dysteleological  argu- 
ment, see  H.  G.  Wells,  The  Undying  Fire. 

2  See  Chapter  III. 

3  Huxley,  quoted  by  Bosanquet,  Logic,  2nd  edit.,  vol.  u,  pp.  216-7. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  191 

approval  to  the  world  which  has  made  it  possible  for  minds 
to  exist,  seems  still  more  plausible,  but  the  value  to  which 
this  self-bestowed  testimonial  bears  witness,  is  none  the  less 
an  illusion.  There  are,  on  this  view,  no  objective  values 
which  minds  help  to  sustain,  and  the  participation  in  which, 
or  the  enjoyment  of  which,  makes  human  existence  worth- 
while. There  are  only  needs  and  instincts  conferring  a  pass- 
ing worth,  i.e.,  the  character  of  being  desired,  on  the  objects 
needed  for  their  own  satisfaction.  "  Of  course  it  is  a  fact 
that  devotion  may  breed  the  illusion  that  the  object  of  devo- 
tion is  intrinsically  precious;  but  it  is  perverse  to  explain  the 
devotion  by  the  illusion  rather  than  the  illusion  by  the  devo- 
tion." l  This  puts  the  antithesis  of  the  conflicting  theories 
of  value  in  a  nutshell.  The  "  apprehension  of  values  ceases 
to  be,  then,  any  possession  of  or  participation  in  an  objective 
good  by  the  mind;  it  becomes  rather  the  utterance  and  pro- 
jection of  the  basic  exigencies  of  our  existence.  Values  be- 
come intelligible  only  from  below.  Devotion  to  an  object 
comes  to  signify  no  apprehension  of  any  inherent  worth 
residing  in  the  object,  in  that  which  the  desire  faces  and 
which  it  may  hope  to  possess.  If  we  still  think  that  our 
desires,  our  loyalties,  and  our  devotions  look  ahead  to  their 
objects  whose  worth  shall  justify  them,  we  suffer  from  the 
old  illusion.  In  truth,  we  are  told,  these  activities  and 
propensities,  the  objects  of  all  our  strivings  are  but  mir- 
rors in  which  are  reflected  the  real  forces,  the  brute  and 
basic  necessities  of  our  existence  which  lie  behind  them." 2 
These  are  the  words  of  a  critic  of  this  view,  but  they  are 
a  fair  statement  of  the  view  criticised. 

To  those  for  whom  any  one  of  these  three  views  ex- 
presses the  plain  and  obvious  truth,  there  is  nothing  more 

1  E.  M.  McGilvary,  The  Warfare  of  Ideals,  in  the  Hibbert  Journal, 
October,  1915,  p.  46. 

2G.  P.  Adams,  Idealsm  and  The  Modern  Age,  p.  107,  and  also 
chs.  v  and  vi,  passim. 


iQ2  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

to  be  said.  All  one  can  do  is  to  think  oneself  fully  and 
sympathetically  into  each  of  them,  and  then  judge  whether  it 
squares  with  the  total  impression  which  one's  own  experi- 
ence yields.  If  it  does  not  square,  the  way  is  opened  for 
seeking  another  interpretation  more  consistent  with  one's 
own  gathered  vision.  Whichever  view  we  adopt,  there  is 
no  escaping  the  responsibility  involved  in  every  judgment 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  universe  as  a  whole  in  its 
bearing  on  those  values  which  make  human  life,  at  its  best, 
a  thing  of  spiritual  grace  and  beauty,  and  not  merely  an 
instinctive  effort  to  keep  alive  an  animal  body  and  perpetu- 
ate an  animal  species.1  At  any  rate,  the  choice  we  have 
made  is  in  favour  of  the  affirmations  that  the  higher  we  go 
in  the  order. of  appearances,  the  more  undeniably  do  they 
exhibit  the  character  of  values;  that  these  values  are  not 
merely  "  contingent,"  or  accidental,  in  the  total  scheme  of 
things;  and  that  they  are  not  merely  subjective  or  merely 
illusory.  A  complete  presentation  of  the  empirical  data 
which  have  gone  to  form  the  total  impression  summed  up 
in  these  propositions  would  be  the  modern  equivalent  of 
a  theodicy.  It  would  not  be  possible  without  calling  in 
the  evidence  of  religion,  especially  in  its  bearing  on  the 
problem  of  evil.2 

Meanwhile,  even  in  the  present  scientific  context,  some- 
thing of  the  dialectic  of  teleology  may  be  exhibited.  There 
is  a  useful  lesson  to  be  learned  from  L.  J.  Henderson's 
recent  attempt  to  show,  mainly  from  bio-chemical  evi- 
dence, that  there  is  a  teleological  "  pattern "  in  nature, 
and  from  the  criticism  with  which  this  attempt  has  met. 
In  his  books  on  The  Fitness  of  the  Environment  and  on 

lCf.  B.  Bosanquet,  Logic,  2nd  edit.,  vol.  ii,  p.  220,  note:  "If  you 
believe  that  the  world-system  is  wholly  indifferent  to  the  interests  of 
civilization,  you  shoulder  just  as  heavy  a  logical  responsibility  as  if 
you  believe  the  opposite." 

2  For  Religion,  see  below,  Ch.  x.  On  the  problem  of  Evil  I  hope 
to  say  something  in  the  second  volume  of  Studies. 


Ch.  VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  193 

The  Order  of  Nature,  Henderson  argues  that  when  the 
physico-chemical  system  is  viewed,  not  in  abstraction  by 
itself,  but  in  its  bearing  on  life,  the  manifold  forms  of  which 
it  conditions  and  makes  possible,  it  becomes  startlingly 
clear  that  the  fundamental  properties  of  the  three  common 
elements,  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  oxygen,  and  of  some  of 
their  compounds,  and  the  wide  distribution  of  these  ele- 
ments and  compounds,  exhibit  a  maximum  of  fitness  for 
the  needs  of  precisely  such  living  forms  as  we  actually  find 
upon  earth.  This  "  fitn^s,  nfthp  environment,"  is,  from  the 
purely  physico-chemical  point  oi  view,  a  happy  chance. 
Countless  other  distributions,  countless  other  conjunctions 
of  properties  would  have  been  just  as  possible.  The  fact 
that  the  actual  distributions  and  conjunctions  have  this  fit- 
ness for  life  is  for  physics  and  chemistry  irrelevant,  and 
their  principles  afford  no  specific  explanation  for  it.  It 
becomes  intelligible  only  if  we  read  it  as  a  teleological  pat- 
tern, as  a  "  preparation  "  for  life.1  The  antithetic  reading 
of  the  situation  is  supplied  by  Professor  Warren.  "  We  may 
raise  at  least  two  objections  to  Professor  Henderson's  argu- 
ment. In  the  first  place  it  is  ex  post  facto.  The  evolutionist  ) 
holds  that  organic  life  has  grown  up  as  it  has  as  a  result  of  ^^. 
conditions  which  actually  exist.  If  carbon  were  absent  or—- 
rare, possibly  another  type  of  organism  would  have  evolved, 
based  upon  silica  compounds.  If  the  properties  of  elements 
had  been  otherwise,  we  might  expect  to  find  different  types 
of  organisms,  exhibiting  different  characteristics.  If  the 
earth's  surface  were  mainly  land,  possibly  fresh-water  or 
aerial  organisms  would  have  arisen  earlier  than  marine  types. 
In  other  words,  evolution  is  a  process  of  adaptation  to  the 
given  environment.  Whatever  environment  is  present  is 
presumably  fit  for  the  types  of  organism  which  evolve  within 

1  See  for  details,  esp.  The  Order  of  Nature,  Chs.  viii-x,  and  The 
Fitness  of  the  Environment,  Chs.  vii,  viii. 


194  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

its  limits." 1  We  may  legitimately  wonder  how  Warren  can 
be  so  very  sure  that,  if  the  environment  had  been  funda- 
mentally other  than  it  is  in  its  chemical  constitution,  other 
types  of  organisms  would  have  evolved  within  it  at  all. 
There  are  in  his  argument  two  strains  which  ought  to  be 
kept  apart.  One  is  the  appeal  to  the  perfectly  sound  prin- 
ciple that  "  every  difference  makes  a  difference."  We  can- 
not consistently  conceive  that  the  same  organisms  should 
have  evolved,  or  be  able  to  live,  under  conditions  funda- 
mentally different  from  those  under  which  we  find  them. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  other  organisms  would  have 
evolved  instead.  Ought  we  not  rather  to  say  that  under 
other  conditions  no  life  might  be  possible  at  all?  "  Only 
life  as  we  know  it  would  have  been  impossible,"  it  may  be 
retorted;  "how  can  you  deny  that  other  forms  of  life  are 
possible  than  those  with  which  we  are  acquainted."  But 
how  can  our  opponent  affirm  it?  We  are  approaching  the 
point  where  it  becomes  a  question  what  our  ignorance  does, 
or  does  not,  permit  us  to  conceive  as  "  possible."  In  a  nut- 
shell, the  situation  is  this.  We  both  know  the  given  forms 
of  life  in  the  given  environment.  This  is  our  actual  world. 
We  both  believe  that  in  this  environment  only  these  forms 
of  life  are  possible.  This  is  the  principle  of  determinism, 
and  if  we  are  thorough  with  it,  we  shall  say  further  that  the 
actual  forms  of  life  are  also  necessary.  The  issue  which 
divides  us  is,  whether  from  the  supposition  of  an  entirely 
different  environment  we  are  to  infer  forms  of  life  unlike 
any  we  know,  or  treat  this  suggestion  as  scientifically  illegiti- 
mate— as  a  speculation  which,  in  the  absence  of  positive 
grounds,  hangs  in  the  air. 

The  lesson  which  may  patently  be  learned  from  this  ex- 
ample, will  help  us  to  clarify  the  issue.  Teleological  concepts, 
we  shall  all  agree,  are  out  of  place  except  where  something 

1 H.  C.  Warren  in  Philosophical  Review,  vol.  xxvii,  no.  6,  p.  613. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  195 

which  is  an  actual  fact  is  also  an  actual  value — where  some- 
thing which  exists  is  also  intrinsically  good.  If  now  it  be 
granted  that  life  and  mind  are  intrinsic  values,  then  we  have 
before  us  a  world  in  which  these  values  are  facts,  and  neces- 
sary facts.  For  they  are  conditioned  or  determined  to  be 
just  what  they  are.  Formally,  the  world  is  a  "  determi- 
nistic "  one,  i.e.,  subject  to  the  "  law  of  sufficient  reason." 
And  nothing  but  this  deterministic  point  of  view  prevails  in 
the  abstract  sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry  which  supply 
the  frame-work  of  "  mechanism."  Yet  this  mechanical 
world  is  such  as  to  evolve  life  and  mind.  If  we  are  not  will- 
ing to  say  that  this  is  a  fortunate  coincidence,  nor,  with 
Leibniz,  that  God  in  his  wisdom  and  goodness  chose  to 
create  out  of  an  infinite  number  of  possible  worlds  the  "  best 
possible,"  i.e.,  the  one  in  which  the  maximum  of  value  could 
be  actually  embodied,  there  is  no  alternative  open  but  to 
say  that  the  total  scheme  of  the  universe  is  not  indifferent  to 
the  values  to  which  it  gives  rise  and  which  it  sustains;  that 
the  existence  of  values  in  it  as  necessary  facts  reflects  value 
on  the  whole;  that  the  elimination  of  teleological  concepts 
from  the  mechanical  sciences,  the  divorce  of  fact  from  value, 
is  the  result  of  an  abstraction  which  a  more  synthetic  or 
synoptic  point  of  view  corrects. 

The  empirical  basis  of  the  teleological  point  of  view,  thus, 
is  precisely  this,  that  values,  like  life  and  mind,  are  not 
only  facts  which  "  happen  "  to  occur,  but  necessary  facts, 
i.e.,  facts  which,  so  far  as  our  positive  evidence  goes,  must 
occur  under  determinate  mechanical  conditions  and  cannot 
occur  without  them,  though  it  does  not  follow  that,  there- 
fore, they  are  themselves  of  the  mechanical  order  and 
analysable  in  purely  physico-chemical  terms.  The  appeal  to 
the  actual  nexus  of  necessary  fact  and  value  makes  us  secure 
against  the  bogey  of  other  possible  worlds,  such  as  Huxley 
suggests,  in  which  for  science  there  should  be  no  disorder, 


ig6  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.  VII 

and  yet  in  which  there  should  be  nothing  of  value.  When 
thrown  into  the  scale  against  the  actual  nexus  of  fact  and 
value  these  unmotived  possibilities  weigh  as  nothing. 

A  Note  on  Bergson  and  The  Origin  of  Life 

It  is  but  meet  that  a  philosopher,  having  stated  his  view, 
should  offer  a  sacrifice  at  the  altar  of  the  unknown  god  in  the 
shape  of  confessing  "  ultimate  doubts."  In  this  case,  having 
tried  to  save  both  necessity  and  value  in  our  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse, we  cannot  do  better  than  throw  our  ultimate  doubts  into 
the  form  of  a  consideration  of  "  novelty  "  and  "  creation  "  in 
their  relation  to  necessity  and  value,  with  special  reference  to 
Bergson's  theory  of  "  creative  evolution  "  and  the  clan  vital.  So 
far  as  vitalism  offers  points  of  philosophical  interest,  it  is  in 
Bergson's  theory  rather  than  in  Driesch's  that  they  are  to  be 
found.  For,  although  Driesch's  concept  of  "  entelechy  "  involves 
"  experimental  indeterminism,"  it  does  not,  like  Bergson's  elan 
vital,  involve  absolute  indeterminism.  The  entelechy  is  intro- 
duced as  explaining  what  from  the  mechanical  point  of  view 
would  be  inexplicable  novelty  and  creation.  The  argument  rests 
on  the  principle,  well-known  to  the  school-men,  that  there  can- 
not be  more  in  the  effect  than  there  is  in  the  cause.  If  any 
structure,  at  the  end  of  a  process  of  growth  or  evolution,  exhibits 
perceptibly  a  higher  degree  of  complexity  than  was  perceptibly 
discernible  in  it  at  the  start,  there  must,  so  Driesch  infers,  have 
been  present  throughout  an  imperceptible,  semi-psychical  factor, 
to  account  for  the  appearance  of  more  out  of  less.  This  addi- 
tional factor  which  restores  the  balance  is  the  "  entelechy."  *  Of 
course,  the  entelechy  is  endowed  by  Driesch  with  the  power  of 
getting  results  out  of  a  given  constellation  of  physical  and  chemi- 
cal elements  (e.g.,  out  of  a  cell)  which  could  not  have  been  got 
out  of  it  on  purely  "  mechanical "  principles.  Conversely,  its 
own  modus  operandi  is  not  analysable,  or  calculable,  in  physico- 
chemical  terms.  Thence  results  experimental  indeterminism: 
"  Two  systems  absolutely  identical  in  every  physico-chemical 
[i.e.,  perceptible]  respect  may  behave  differently  under  abso- 
lutely identical  conditions,  in  case  that  the  systems  are  living 

1  See  e.g.,  History  and  Theory  of  Vitalism,  pp.  195  ff.  and  The 
Problem  of  Individuality,  pp.  47  ff. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  197 

systems." *  But  in  that  the  difference  in  behaviour  is  attributed 
to  the  entelechy,  Driesch's  view  is  deterministic  in  the  absolute 
sense.  In  fact,  the  entelechy  does  not  belong  in  any  sense  to  an- 
other level  or  order  of  phenomena:  it  is  simply  an  additional, 
though  imperceptible,  factor  operating  to  modify,  and  even  sus- 
pend, physico-chemical  laws. 

Quite  otherwise  is  the  position  of  Bergson.  For  him,  the  creativ- 
ity of  the  elan  -vital  does  manifest  itself  in  a  continual  production 
of  more  out  of  less.  In  Bosanquet's  sympathetic  phrase,  "  The 
stream  rises  higher  than  its  source."  Determinism  and  mechanism 
are  powerless  to  make  intelligible  the  spontaneous  and  inex- 
haustible fertility  of  the  life-impulse  in  the  creating  of  novel 
forms  of  structure  and  behaviour.  Their  "  laws  "  express  only 
the  uniformities  and  routines  which  the  life-impulse  assumes  when 
it  slackens  and  relaxes,  but  which  are  melted  into  plasticity  where 
the  spear-point  of  life  pushes  through  to  novel  achievements.  No 
wonder  that  Bergson  declares  that  only  by  "  intuition  "  from 
within,  not  by  analytic  "  intelligence  "  from  without,  can  this 
life-impulse  in  ourselves  and  in  the  world  around  us  be  appre- 
hended. 

Now,  whether  we  can  share  this  intuition  or  not,  there  is 
at  least  one  point  in  Bergson's  critique  of  "  mechanism  "  which 
deserves  consideration. 

(a)  This  point  may  be  expressed  bluntly  by  saying  that 
mechanism  is  incompatible  with  evolution.  This  is  the  real 
point  in  Bergson's  theory  of  duree  or  "  real  time  ",  as  distinct 
from  the  "  spatialised  "  time  of  physics.  The  mechanical  point 
of  view  is  non-evolutionary,  non- historical.  A  mechanical  system 
is  a  closed  system.  The  changes  which,  as  a  given  configuration 
of  elements  and  forces,  it  can  undergo,  are  strictly  predetermined. 
Tout  est  donne.  In  such  a  system  no  novelties  can  appear:  all 
is  repetition  of  the  same.  Routine,  not  creation;  uniformity,  not 
variability,  are  its  dominant  characteristics.  The  theory  that 
Nature  is  a  mechanical  system  is  in  flat  contradiction  to  the 
theory  that  there  is  a  historical  process  of  evolution,  in  the  course 
of  which  there  came  a  point  at  which  life  first  appeared  in  a 
hitherto  lifeless  world.  "  Mechanism  "  analyses  on  its  "  formal  " 
side  into  determinism,  on  its  "  material "  side  into  physics  and 

1  Quoted  from  correspondence  with  Driesch  by  H.  S.  Jennings  in 
Philosophical  Review,  Vol.  xxvii,  No.  6,  p.  581. 


ig8  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.VII 

chemistry.  The  general  formula  of  determinism  is,  "  If  A,  then 
B  ",  and  also,  "  If  not  B,  then  not  A  ".  If  the  world  was  once 
without  life,  the  conditions  which  now,  when  there  is  life,  we 
perceive  to  be  necessary  for  its  existence,  cannot  themselves 
have  as  yet  existed.  Why  not?  Because  their  conditions,  in 
turn,  did  not  yet  exist.  Thus  the  novelty  of  the  origin  of  life 
is  thrown  back  on  the  novelty,  at  some  point  in  history,  of  the 
conditions  of  life,  and  so  forth  in  infinitum.  But  for  mechanism 
there  can  be  no  novelties,  except  by  the  accident  of  our  ignorance. 
Mechanical  theory  finds  life  existing  under  determinate  conditions 
and  formulates  the  law.  It  finds  these  conditions  in  turn  de- 
termined by  conditions,  and  once  more  formulates  the  law.  It 
goes  on  finding:  tout  est  donne.  But  the  historical  process  of 
evolution  sifts  somehow  through  the  meshes  of  the  mechanist's 
intellectual  net  and  escapes. 

The  difficulty  may  be  crystallised  into  the  dilemma:  either 
life  must  have  been  there  always,  or  it  could  not  have  got  in  at 
all.  And  if  we  choose  to  take  the  first  horn,  it  is  clearly  more 
plausible  to  think  of  life  as  "  being  there  always  ",  not  in  the 
form  of  particular  sorts  of  living  beings,  but  as  a  metaphysical 
ultimate,  be  it  as  Schopenhauerian  "  will  ",  or  as  elan  vital  de- 
positing "  matter  "  in  its  downward,  embodying  itself  in  living 
forms  in  its  upward,  movement.  The  inorganic  world  is,  so  to 
speak,  the  death,  the  organic  world  the  eternal  youth,  of  the 
cosmic  life-impulse.  Poetical  metaphors  seem  almost  unavoid- 
able in  the  attempt  to  render  Bergson's  theory. 

But  that  the  dilemma  is  genuine,  and  not  merely  fanciful,  may 
be  easily  shown  by  the  shifts  to  which  scientific  theory  is  driven 
when  it  honestly  faces  the  problem  of  the  "  origin  "  of  life,  which 
is,  of  course,  but  a  special  case  of  the  problem  of  the  origin  of 
anything  new  in  kind  in  a  universe  so  conceived  that  it  does  not 
provide  for  the  emergence  of  what  is  new  in  kind.  It  is  hard 
to  say  which  is  more  remarkable: — the  profound  insensibility  of 
many  "  mechanistic  "  writers  to  this  problem,  or  their  wild  guesses 
when  they  become  sensible  of  its  awkwardness.  Typical  of  the 
wild  guesses  are  the  speculations  of  Arrhenius  on  the  possibility 
of  life  having  got  into  our  planet  by  the  immigration  of  micro- 
scopic living  particles  from  interstellar  space.  This,  surely,  if 
accepted,  would  amount  to  a  confession  of  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
physico-chemical  theory  of  life.  It  admits,  by  implication,  that 
it  is  not  in  virtue  of  some  physico-chemical  character  that  these 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  199 

microscopic  particles  are  called  "living".     Moreover,  the  suit- 
ability of  the  physico-chemical  constitution  of  the  earth  for  the 
maintenance  and  development  of  these  living  particles  is,  of 
course,  not  "  explained  ",  but  assumed  as  a  piece  of  good  luck. 
Good  luck,  or,  in  other  words,  chance,  coincidence,  is  what,  in 
fact,  all  scientific  theories  on  the  origin  of  life  take  for  granted 
at  the  crucial  point.    Of  course,  they  are  none  of  them  so  naive 
as  to  call  it  good  luck,  but  that  is  what  it  comes  to  when  the 
camouflage  of  a  learned  terminology  is  stripped  off.    The  com- 
monest device  is  to  say  "  let  but  such-and-such  things  happen, 
and  behold  you  have  the  first  bit  of  living  substance  ".    Exactly: 
you  take  for  granted  what  is  required  to  get  life,  and,  of  course, 
life  results.     Nothing  could  be  simpler.    Here  is  a  typical  in- 
stance:— "  A  little  reflection  will  serve  to  show  that  if  we  are 
not  diffident  in  our  application  of  the  conception  of  catalysis  it 
will  provide  us  with  an  explanation  of  life  from  the  very  start. 
Let  us  suppose  that  at  a  certain  moment  in  earth-history,  when 
the  ocean  waters  are  yet  warm,  there  suddenly  appears  at  a  de- 
finite point  within  the  oceanic  body  a  small  amount  of  a  certain 
catalyzer  or  enzyme.    Let  us,  moreover,  imagine  that  the  sea- 
water  contains  in  solution  a  number  of  substances  which  react 
very  slowly  to  produce  an  oily  liquid,  immiscible  with  water.    A 
reaction  of  this  character  based  upon  probable  solutes  of  the 
early  seas  might  easily  be  specified.    Now  in  the  third  place, 
we  must  imagine  that  our  enzyme  is  related  with  this  reaction  in 
such  a  way  as  greatly  to  reduce  the  chemical  friction  which  it 
encounters,  and  hence  markedly  to  increase  its  rate.    What  will 
be  the  outcome?     Why,  obviously  the  particle  of  enzyme  will 
become  enveloped  in  the  oily  material  resulting  from  the  re- 
action, and  if  it  happens  that  the  original  substances  which  enter 
into  combination  are  soluble  in  the  oil  as  well  as  in  the  sea-water, 
the  little  oil  drop  will  wax  greater  until  it  is  split  up  into  smaller 
globules  by  the  natural  currents  of  the  ocean.    It  is  clear  that 
that  developing  oil  drop  is  intended  to  represent  the  origin  of  the 
first  and  simplest  life-substance   .    .    .  The  most  fundamental 
objection  which  can  be  raised  against  the  theory  has  reference  to 
the  source  of  the  original  enzyme.    This  enzyme  is  a  very  special 
sort  of  a  body,  and  consequently  its  fortuitous  formation  in  the 
primeval  oceans  may  be  regarded  as  an  improbable  event.    How- 
ever, this  is  not  equivalent  to  saying  that  it  was  an  impossible 
occurrence,  and  since  only  one  event  of  this  specific  kind  is  re- 


200  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.  VII 

quired  by  the  theory  during  a  period  of  time  covering  many  mil- 
lions of  years,  objections  based  upon  general  considerations  of 
probability  have  practically  no  force.  Chemistry  must  answer 
the  question  as  to  whether  our  first  enzyme  is  possible.  A  very 
great  number  of  different  compounds  must  have  been  formed  as 
a  result  of  the  multitudinous  chemical  reactions  which  un- 
doubtedly took  place  in  the  primordial  oceans,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  one  of  these  compounds  should  not  have  been  just  the 
body  required  to  mediate  the  origin  of  living  matter.  The  strik- 
ing fact  that  the  enzymic  theory  of  life's  origin,  as  we  have  out- 
lined it,  necessitates  the  spontaneous  production  of  only  a  single 
molecule  of  the  original  catalyst,  renders  the  objection  of  im- 
probability almost  absurd  ",l  Of  course,  if  you  imagine  the 
right  conditions  you  have  a  right  to  imagine  the  right  results, 
but  we  want  more  than  imaginations  concerning  how  it  might 
have  happened;  we  want  evidence  that  it  did  so  happen.  It  is 
not  enough  to  say:  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  have 
happened  as  imagined.  We  want  to  know  whether  there  is 
any  reason  to  think  that  it  actually  did  happen.  Happy  chance 
is  the  deus  ex  machina  which  helps  these  theories  across  the  gap 
between  the  "  possible  "  and  the  "  actual  ".  It  would  be  just 
as  logical  to  argue  that  because  one  among  the  theoretically  pos- 
sible combinations  of  cards  in  a  pack  is  that  which,  on  dealing, 
will  yield  four  hands  each  consisting  of  a  complete  suit,  therefore 
that  distribution  will  actually  result,  if  only  some  one  goes  on  long 
enough  shuffling  and  dealing.  Unless  we  are  prepared  to  say 
that  every  combination  which  is  "  possible  ",  i.e.,  conceivable,  is 
also  actual,  or  must  necessarily  at  some  time  become  actual,  the 
actuality  of  the  right  combination,  i.e.,  the  combination  to  which 
alone  some  special  interest,  or  some  consequence  of  value,  at- 
taches, requires  always  a  specific  reason  for  its  explanation.  In- 
deed, the  becoming  actual  of  any  one  of  the  alternatives  permitted 
by  the  system  requires  a  positive  reason.  A  "  possibility  "  can 
become  an  actuality  only  when  it  is  a  "  necessity  ".  There  is 
no  escaping  this  logical  principle.  For  the  actual  is,  by  the  very 
principle  of  determinism,  not  only  possible  but  also  necessary. 
If  this  is  true  of  the  actualisation  of  any  possibility,  it  is  even 
more  eminently  true  of  the  actualisation  of  those  possibilities 

*L.  T.  Troland,  The  Chemical  Origin  and  Regulation  of  Life,  re- 
printed from  the  Monist,  January,  1914,  by  the  Open  Court  Publish- 
ing Co. 


Ch.VII]     MECHANISM  AND  VITALISM  (Cont.)  201 

which  yield  life  and  mind.  We  are  brought  back  to  the  familiar 
parting  of  the  ways: — Was  it  luck?  Did  it  just  happen  so?  Or 
is  the  realisation  of  the  right  possibility  when,  for  all  we  know, 
it  might  have  remained  unrealised,  somehow  connected  with  the 
value  of  the  result?  In  some  such  form  as  this  the  concept  of 
objective  value  is  bound  to  return  upon  us  in  these  speculations.1 

We  may  be  accused  here  of  ignoring  a  third  alternative — the 
"  cunning "  which  Samuel  Butler  opposed  to  Darwin's  lucky 
accidental  variations.2  But  to  attribute  cunning,  and  with  it 
consciousness,  be  it  to  life  in  general,  be  it  to  individual  cells, 
or  even  merely  to  germ-cells,  outruns  all  empirical  evidence,  and 
even  Butler's  fascinating  and  skillful  argument  does  not  make 
the  suggestion  plausible.  It  throws  too  large  a  burden  on  slender 
analogies. 

In  any  case,  neither  luck  nor  cunning  play  any  part  in  the 
creative  activity  of  Bergson's  elan  vital.  As  a  metaphysical  prin- 
ciple it  does  not  need  luck,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  does  not 
hamper  itself  with  plans.  It  aims  at  no  ends.  It  just  creates 
in  abundant  profusion  unpredictable  novelties.  Mechanism  does 
not  give  the  clue  to  its  riddle,  neither  does  "  finalism  ",  which  is 
but  mechanism  upside  down.  For  once  the  end  is  fixed  and  the 
plan  thought  out,  the  whole  process  of  realisation  is  determined. 
There  is  no  creativeness  in  it  any  more.  That  will  all  have  gone 
into  the  thinking  out  of  the  plan,  which  is  a  process  to  be  under- 
stood only  from  within  by  intuition,  by  living  through  it  oneself, 
not  to  be  dissected  from  without  by  analytic  intelligence. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Bergson's  philosophy  is  the  com- 
pletest  antithesis,  and  the  sharpest  challenge,  to  the  positions  ad- 
vocated in  the  preceding  essays.3  There  is  no  room  within  his 
metaphysics  of  creative  evolution  for  the  hierarchy  of  appearances 
for  which  we  have  tried  to  argue  as  characteristic  of  the  order 
of  the  universe.  There  is  no  room  for  our  view  of  the  nexus  of 
fact  and  value.  It  will  stand  as  a  possible  alternative,  unless, 

1  It  should  be  noted  that  the  "  mechanism  and  teleology  "  theory  of 
the  preceding  essay  is  an  attempt  to  state  the  relation  of  life  to  its 
physico-chemical  conditions  as  actually  found.  It  does  not  pretend  to 
be  a  theory  of  the  historical  origin  of  life.    And  all  that  is  suggested 
here  is  that,  if  we  speculate  on  origins  at  all,  the  fact  that  the  result 
has  value,  cannot  be  ignored  as  a  priori  irrelevant. 

2  See  especially  Butler's  Luck  or  Cunning? 

3  The  same  has  to  be  said  of  Charles  Peirce's  Tychism,  many  of 
the  doctrines  of  which  resemble  those  of  Bergson. 


202  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS        [Ch.  VII 

and  until,  it  can  be  shown  that  creative  activity  is  a  logical  pro- 
cess, and  accessible  in  this  its  logical  character  to  a  reflective 
analysis  which  will  not  simply  "  mechanise  "  it  and  "  spatialise  " 
it  after  the  manner  of  Bergson's  intelligence.  But  the  examina- 
tion of  Bergson's  free-will  argument  (in  Les  Donnees  Immediates 
de  la  Conscience),  which  would  be  necessary  for  this  purpose,  lies 
beyond  the  scope  of  these  essays. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THEORIES   OF  MIND 

HAVING  been  engaged,  in  the  preceding  two  essays,  in  an 
attempt  to  save  the  appearances  in  biology,  with  much  inci- 
dental discussion  of  the  philosophical  problems  which  that 
attempt  raises,  we  are  now  to  make  an  attempt  to  save  the 
nominal  object  of  psychology,  viz.,  the  soul,  or,  as  we  shall 
say,  the  mind.  Our  argument,  welcoming  in  the  interests 
of  concrete  analysis  the  present-day  movement  towards  a 
functional  theory  of  mind,  will  plead  for  a  synthesis  of  the 
Aristotelian  and  Descartian,  the  biological  and  introspective, 
points  of  view.  This  requires  that  we  should  frankly  face 
the  difficulty,  too  often  ignored,  that  the  terms  mind,  soul, 
consciousness,  are  used  in  very  different  contexts  and  hence 
with  widely  different  meanings.  The  lines  between  these 
contexts  are  not  easy  to  draw;  indeed  they  are  more  or  less 
fluctuating.  This  situation  is  reflected  in  the  fact  that 
modern  psychology  strikes  the  observer  hardly  as  a  single 
science,  but  rather  as  several  sciences  going  under  one  name. 
It  is  certainly  true,  that  in  no  science  is  there  so  much 
controversy  about  fundamental  concepts  or  about  methods. 
No  other  science  is  in  the  paradoxical  position  of  offering 
descriptions  of  its  subject-matter  as  widely  divergent  from 
each  other  as  are  "  mental  processes  "  and  "  behaviour." 
No  other  science  offers  a  parallel  to  the  startling  phenomenon 
of  a  leading  psychologist  solemnly  propounding  the  ques- 
tion: "Does  Consciousness  Exist?"1  Moreover,  a  great 
deal  of  what,  in  a  broad  sense  of  the  term,  might  be  set  down 
under  "  mental  life,"  is  not  included  in  current  psychology 

1  William  James,  in  Essays  in  Radical  Empiricism. 

203 


204  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.  VIII 

at  all.  Social  Psychology  has,  indeed,  of  recent  years  begun 
to  correct  the  abstractness  of  the  over-individualistic  point 
of  view  of  classical  psychology.  A  book  like  James's  Vari- 
eties of  Religious  Experience  has  shown  the  way  from 
excessive  generalities  to  a  study  of  a  concrete  type  of  ex- 
perience in  its  specific  modifications.  Behaviourism  has 
broken  down  the  artificial  isolation  of  a  mind  from  its  body 
and  its  environment.  Freud  has  furnished  an  integrating 
principle  which,  with  necessary  qualifications,  E.  B.  Holt, 
for  example,  is  beginning  to  use  to  such  excellent  effect, 
that  he  even  re-discovers,  with  due  psychological  authority, 
the  commonsense  of  Socrates'  moral  teaching.1  There  is,  in 
short,  noticeable  a  distinct  movement  from  the  abstract  to 
the  concrete.  But  it  is  still  true  that  psychological  theory 
hovers  uneasily  between  physiology  on  the  one  side  and 
"  philosophy  of  mind  "  on  the  other.  Too  many  psycholo- 
gists, when  they  become  conscious  of  these  depths,  seek 
safety  in  confining  themselves  to  the  purely  experimental 
side  of  their  subject,  content  to  gather  facts  and  let  theory 
take  care  of  itself.  But  the  policy  of  the  ostrich  works  no 
better  here  than  elsewhere,  and  fundamental  questions  are 
not  disposed  of  by  being  ignored.2  At  any  rate,  unless  we 
are  greatly  mistaken,  there  is  in  present-day  psychology, 
so  far  as  it  dares  to  speculate,  a  noticeable  movement 
towards  a  more  concrete  concept  of  mind.  Mind  is  coming 
again  to  be  looked  on  as  a  dynamic  and  effective  factor  in 
the  world,  precisely  because  it  is  again  being  looked  on  as 
functionally  related  to  its  bodily  basis,  and  through  its 
body  to  the  wider  world.  Something  of  this  development 
we  shall  try  to  trace,  but  before  we  can  do  so  profitably, 

1  The  Freudian  Wish,  p.  141 ;  see  also  the  whole  of  ch.  iy. 

2  Miinsterberg's    distinction   between   causal   and   purposive   psycho- 
logy   is,   of   course,   an    example   of   the   recognition    that   there   are 
different  points   of    view  yielding  widely  different   concepts   of  mind, 
but    his    distinction    between    them    is    too    sharply    dualistic    to    be 
satisfactory. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  205 

we  must  work  our  way  past  certain  difficulties  which  threaten 
to  make  all  theory  of  mind  impossible. 

The  saving  of  mind,  like  the  saving  of  any  other  appear- 
ance, is  effected,  as  we  know  from  preceding  essays,  by 
devising  a  theory  which  accepts  the  appearance  in  question 
and  exhibits  it  in  its  place  in  the  order  of  the  universe. 
And  accepting  an  appearance  is  itself  a  matter  of  theory 
concerning  what  the  true,  or  real,  nature  of  that  appear- 
ance is. 

There  was  a  time,  not  so  very  long  ago,  when  the  most 
conspicuous  obstacle  to  a  saving  of  mind  would  have  been 
the  theory  known  as  "  materialism."  There  is  no  need  to 
stir  once  more  the  ashes  of  this  burnt-out  controversy.  At 
the  present  day  the  obstacles  to  the  framing  of  an  adequate 
theory  of  what  a  mind  is,  spring  from  sources  far  other 
than  the  bogey  of  a  purely  material  universe.  One  obstacle 
is  to  be  found  in  the  denial  that  data  for  a  theory  of  mind 
are  available.  This  denial  is  based  sometimes  on  the  al- 
leged difficulty  of  self-observation  or  introspection,  but 
more  frequently  on  the  alleged  impossibility  of  any  mind 
directly  observing  any  other.  Another  obstacle  arises  from 
the  abstract  concept  of  mind  which  is  still  being  defended, 
or  perhaps  we  should  rather  say  being  wrestled  with,  in 
some  quarters,  as  a  supposed  requirement  of  the  theory  of 
knowledge. 

Of  this  latter  obstacle  we  can  dispose  without  much 
ado.  If  the  problem  of  knowledge  is,  first,  conceived  in 
terms  of  a  "  cognitive  relation  "  between  a  "  subject "  or 
"  knower  "  and  an  "  object  "  or  "  known  ";  if  the  subject, 
next,  is  defined  as  "  mind  "  and  as  different  in  nature  from 
everything  that  is  object  or  known;  and  if,  lastly,  to  give 
a  final  twist  to  the  tangle,  the  distinction  of  subject  and  ob- 
ject is  identified  with  the  distinction  of  soul  and  body, 


206  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

then,  of  course,  a  situation  is  created  which  is  well-nigh 
desperate.  For  all  these  distinctions  result  in,  so  to  speak, 
isolating  a  mind  alike  from  its  body  and  from  the  objects 
which  it  is  supposed  to  know.  They  burden  us  with  the 
problem  of  the  relation  of  body  to  soul,  conceived  as  two 
distinct  substances.  They  burden  us  with  the  even  more 
awkward  problem  of  the  relation  of  intra-mental  "  ideas  " 
to  extra-mental  "  objects."  Many  and  ingenious  are  the  at- 
tempts to  escape  from  these  predicaments,  especially  the 
latter  one.  Sometimes  it  is  done  by  a  declaration  ad  hoc. 
Thus  Bertrand  Russell  assures  us  that  "  the  faculty  of  being 
acquainted  with  things  other  than  itself  is  the  main  char- 
acteristic of  a  mind,"  *  and  this  is  about  the  beginning  and 
end  of  what  this  distinguished  thinker  has  to  say  about  the 
nature  of  a  mind.  Similarly,  Professor  S.  Alexander  tells 
us  that  minds  "  enjoy  "  themselves  and  "  contemplate  " 
other  things,  though  he,  to  be  sure,  makes  a  valiant  attempt 
to  build  a  psychology  on  this  basis.2  Some  of  the  American 
Neo-realists  propound  a  "  relational  theory  of  conscious- 
ness "  in  order  to  fill  the  mind  with  real  things  and  save  real 
things  from  being  engulfed  by  the  subjectivity  of  ideas. 
But — if  the  bull  be  permitted — the  best  way  to  get  out  of 
these  coils  is  never  to  get  into  them.  In  other  words,  the 
all-important  thing  is  to  refrain,  first  and  last,  from  mixing 
up  theory  of  mind  with  theory  of  knowledge,  especially  in 
that  sense  of  the  latter  in  which  it  is  devoted  to  solving  the 
insoluble  conundrum  how  a  mind  shut  up  with  its  own 
ideas  knows  that  there  are  objects  outside  to  which  its  ideas 
correspond.3  The  problem  of  the  theory  of  mind,  like  the 
problem  of  the  theory  of  any  other  phenomenon  in  the 

1  The  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  66. 

2  See    especially    Foundations    and    Sketch-plan    of    a    Conctional 
Psychology,  in  the  British  Journal  of  Psychology,  vol.  iv  (1911). 

3  For  the  genuine  problem  of  the  theory  of  knowledge,  see  the  Note 
at  the  end  of  this  essay. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  207 

world,  is  concerned  with  data  and  their  interpretation — 
with  learning  to  recognise  the  data  and  interpret  them 
rightly. 

This  is,  of  course,  exactly  the  attitude  of  any  psychology 
which  is  not  false  to  its  name.  The  two  working-assump- 
tions of  every  psychologist  are:  (a)  that  minds1  of  all 
sorts  exist  for  him  to  study — he  takes  minds  for  granted 
exactly  as  every  other  scientist  takes  his  subject-matter  for 
granted;  (b)  that  minds  can  be  known,  i.e.,  that  true 
propositions  concerning  minds  can  be  formulated  on  prop- 
erly tested  evidence.  Thus  the  psychologist  proceeds— 
naively,  if  we  like  to  say  so — with  his  business  of  finding 
out  as  much  as  he  can  about  what  minds  are  and  what  they 
do.  Nor  does  he  make  much  difference  between  evidence 
drawn  from  his  observation  of  his  own  mind  and  evidence 
drawn  from  his  observation  of  others.  Certainly  the  theory 
which  he  aims  at  is  a  theory  of  mind  as  such,  not  of  his 
own  mind  in  particular,  still  less  of  his  own  mind  exclu- 
sively. 

But  it  is  just  here  that  the  other  obstacle  threatens  to 
bar  the  way  to  a  theory  of  mind.  It  challenges  introspec- 
tion: How  is  it  possible  for  a  mind  to  observe  and  analyse 
itself  whilst  carrying  on  simultaneously  the  activities  to  be 
studied?  Can  a  mind  become  wholly  object  to  itself,  or 
is  the  object  always  a  part,  a  fragment  focused  by  atten- 
tion, the  subject  remaining  a  surd,  a  background  of  non- 
objectified  immediate  feeling?  It  challenges  no  less  com- 
pletely and  vigorously  all  observation  of  other  minds:  only 
bodies  and  their  movements  are  open  to  public  observation ; 
minds  are  inward  and  private  and  observable  each  only  by 
itself.  A  mind  can  know  other  minds  only  by  analogical 
inference,  whence  it  seems  to  follow  that  a  psychologist 

1  The  term  is  here  used  without  any  prejudice  to  the  position  of 
the  behaviourists. 


208  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

erects  an  amazingly  audacious  superstructure  of  generalisa- 
tions on  a  slender  basis  of  self-observation. 

The  fact  that  psychology  in  practice  successfully  ignores 
these  misgivings  may  reassure  us,  but  even  a  pragmatically- 
minded  philosopher  will  want  to  know,  not  merely  that  a 
procedure  is  successful,  but  why  it  is  so.  It  behooves 
us,  therefore,  to  satisfy  ourselves  that  the  above  objec- 
tions to  the  very  possibility  of  a  theory  of  mind  do  not 
hold. 

This  task  we  may  conveniently  accomplish  in  two  stages, 
considering,  first,  the  general  problem  of  acquaintance  with 
minds,  and,  secondly,  the  various  theories  concerning  a 
mind's  acquaintance  with  itself  and  with  other  minds. 

(i)  The  question,  What  is  a  mind?  is  equivalent  to  the 
question,  What  does  the  term  "  mind  "  mean?  The  ap- 
proach to  our  first  problem  by  way  of  meaning  has  this  ad- 
vantage: it  reminds  us  that  when  we  are  engaged  in  the 
study  of  appearances  for  which  we  have  empirical  data, 
terms  are  both  denotative  and  connotative  or  descriptive, 
i.e.,  experience  both  furnishes  points  for  their  application 
and  materials  for  the  development  of  the  description,  or 
theory,  of  the  nature  of  what  we  are  dealing  with.  The 
meaning  of  every  descriptive  term  is  a  concept,  a  universal, 
a  theory — drawn  from  experience  by  that  ordering  and  inter- 
preting of  data  of  which  synthesis  and  discrimination  are 
the  correlative  sides,  and  which  is  open  both  to  verifica- 
tion and  to  expansion  and  correction  by  fresh  experience. 
Thus  "  psychology  without  a  soul "  merely  proclaims,  in 
epigrammatic  form,  that  a  certain  theory  of  what  a  soul 
is,  is  false.  It  does  not  deny  that  there  are  phenomena  to 
which,  with  a  different  connotation,  the  term  is  applicable. 
Again,  when  James  puts  the  question,  "  Does  consciousness 
exist?  "  and  answers  at  first,  "  There  is  no  such  thing  ", 


Ch.  VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  209 

the  sting  of  his  answer  lies  in  the  "  such  ".  For  his  second 
answer  is  another  theory  of  consciousness. 

But  how  are  we  to  set  about  getting  and  verifying  the 
true  theory,  the  correct  meaning,  of  mind? 

Bluntly  put,  the  answer  is,  of  course,  "  Study  actual 
minds,  get  at  the  thing  behind  the  word."  But  do  we  not 
need  the  description,  or  theory,  for  the  correct  identification 
of  the  instances?  Put  bluntly  again,  How  shall  we  know 
a  mind  when  we  meet  one?  The  question  may  seem  absurd, 
when  applied  to  the  particular  case  of  minds,  familiarity 
with  which  we  are  all  ready  to  assume.  But  the  principle 
it  raises  is  important  to  note,  if  only  because  it  gives  us  an 
opportunity  to  reinforce  the  position  we  have  taken  up  in 
these  essays  concerning  the  place  of  "  experience ",  or 
"  data  ",  or  "  particulars  ",  in  knowledge.  This  position  is 
that  even  the  minimal  datum  is  never  less  than  a  this-such. 
There  is  always  some  degree  of  acquaintance  with  the  nature 
of  a  thing  whenever  we  meet  with  the  thing  at  all.  With  this 
clue  to  guide  us  we  have  to  solve  the  problem  of  making 
ourselves  acquainted  with  its  nature  more  completely,  the 
ideal  goal  being  to  know  its  whole  nature.  Theory  thus 
rests  on  acquaintance,  and,  more  than  that,  on  cumulative 
acquaintance,  which,  as  it  progresses,  involves  much  dis- 
crimination and  ordering  of  diverse  data.  But  the  nature 
of  a  thing  is  always  "  universal,"  and  the  progress  towards 
a  completer  theory  is  controlled  by  this  universal  char- 
acter. 

Applying  this  general  view  to  our  present  problem,  how 
the  meaning  of  "  mind  ",  i.e.,  the  theory  of  the  nature  of 
mind,  is  built  up  by  the  study  of  actual  minds,  we  see  that 
we  have  to  realise,  and  keep  realising,  by  acquaintance  with 
minds  what  the  nature  of  mind  is.  Minds  exhibit  them- 
selves, and  we  have  to  study  their  exhibitions  so  as  to  gather 
gradually  an  impression  of  their  complete  nature.  There  are 


210  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

various  ways  of  such  exhibition.  An  animal  exhibits  its 
mind  by  behaving  as  it  is  its  nature  to  behave.  But  for  a 
psychologist  to  perceive  its  mind  correctly,  depends  on  what 
he  attends  to,  and  with  what  insight  into  the  meaning  of 
what  he  perceives.  For  him,  in  turn,  to  exhibit  what  he  per- 
ceives to  another  psychologist,  so  that  the  other  sees  what  he 
sees,  may  need  much  argument  and  common  technical  terms, 
mutual  understanding  of  which  presupposes  that  both  have 
previously  learned  to  synthesise  the  same  sort  of  data  in 
the  same  sort  of  way.  Psychological  laboratory-technique 
refines  the  ways  in  which  human  beings  exhibit  their  minds 
to  each  other  for  purposes  of  study,  but  it  is  artificial  and 
restricted  compared  with  the  infinite  diversity  of  ways  in 
which  by  speech,  gesture,  conduct,  men  in  their  dealings 
with  each  other  exhibit  their  minds  to  each  other.  Self- 
observation  is  the  study  of  the  exhibitions  of  one's  own 
mind,  and  it  may,  of  course,  take  experimental  form.  Every 
one  is  acquainted  with  what  it  is  to  be  a  mind  by  being  one, 
though  being  a  mind  and  exhibiting  one's  mind  are  not  the 
same  thing  as  noticing,  or  reflecting  on,  the  exhibitions  with 
theoretical  interest.  Certainly  self-observation  is  wider 
than  introspection,  at  any  rate  when  the  latter  term,  as 
"  looking  into  one's  own  mind  ",  is  so  restricted  that  obser- 
vation of  one's  body  and  one's  behaviour  towards  surround- 
ing objects  and  other  human  beings  is  excluded.  But  to 
exclude  these  is  precisely  to  cut  off  the  most  illuminating 
exhibitions  of  one's  mind.  The  difficulties  urged  against 
introspection  do  not  touch  this  side  of  the  evidence,  and, 
again,  on  this  view  of  the  evidence,  the  alleged  inaccessi- 
bility of  other  minds  loses  most  of  its  terrors. 

Of  course,  it  is  true  that  no  one  can  simply  point  with  his 
finger  at  a  mind,  either  his  own  or  his  neighbour's,  as  he  can 
point  at  a  coloured  patch.  But  argument,  or  theory,  is  an 
indirect  way  of  pointing.  It  teaches  to  identify  by  descrip- 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  211 

tion.    It  directs  the  attention  so  that  the  desired  effect  or 
impression  may  be  got. 

The  upshot  of  all  this  is  that  the  meaning  of  "  mind  " 
must  be  derived  from  acquaintance  with  minds,  it  being  the 
systematic  account  of  the  universal  nature  of  mind  as  ex- 
hibited in  particular  minds.  Even  the  first  acquaintance 
with  a  particular  mind  is  already,  so  far  as  it  goes,  an  ac- 
quaintance with  the  universal  nature  of  mind,  though  it 
takes  further  acquaintance  with  fresh  data  to  develop  this 
knowledge  of  the  universal  at  which  the  theory  of  mind 
aims. 

(2)  We  are  now  in  a  position  for  the  second  part  of  our 
task  which  consists  in  reviewing,  in  their  connection  with 
each  other,  the  various  theories  concerning  a  mind's  ac- 
quaintance with  itself  and  with  other  minds. 

We  may  begin  with  the  familiar  view  that  the  only  mind 
which  any  one  can  become  acquainted  with  is  his  own  mind.1 
We  may  call  this,  briefly,  the  principle  of  the  privacy  of 
mind.  To  adopt  it  as  the  basis  of  psychology  seems  fatal, 
for  strictly  taken  it  would  limit  the  psychologist  to  self- 
observation  and  autobiography.  Intercourse  by  language 
hides  the  difficulty  in  human  psychology:  in  animal  psy- 
chology it  becomes  inevitably  glaring.  We  cannot  wonder 
that,  in  protest,  a  demand  for  an  "  objective  "  psychology 
should  have  sprung  up,  refusing  to  concern  itself  with  the 
inaccessible  "  inside  "  of  other  creatures'  minds,  and  study- 
ing instead  the  well  accessible  "  outside  "  of  their  behaviour. 
But  even  more  interesting  is  the  development  of  this  protest 

1  This  view,  though  verbally  similar,  is,  of  course,  to  be  strictly  dis- 
tinguished from  such  a  view  as  that  of  Leibniz's  Monadology.  The 
privacy  of  minds  of  which  we  are  here  speaking,  is  compatible  with 
the  beliefs  that  there  are  bodies  or  physical  objects,  that  these  are 
radically  different  from  minds,  that  a  mind  can  know  by  acquaintance 
both  its  own  body  and  the  bodies  associated  with  other  minds.  All 
it  denies  .is  that  any  mind  can  be  acquainted  with  any  other  mind. 


212  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

in  the  direction  of  a  rival  theory  of  minds  as  open  to  one 
another's  inspection,  as  in  fact  "  overlapping,"  x  The  pos- 
sibility of  the  knowledge  of  other  minds,  of  getting  judg- 
ments concerning  them  which  not  only  are  de  facto  true, 
but  which  we  can  see  to  be  true,  has  been  attracting  an 
increasing  amount  of  attention  in  recent  philosophical  litera- 
ture. It  will  repay  us  to  study  the  situation  in  some 
detail. 

At  one  extreme,  we  have  the  familiar  view  that  only 
bodies  are  perceptible  by  the  senses,  whilst  minds,  from 
their  very  nature,  are  imperceptible.  It  follows  that  whilst, 
by  sight  and  touch,  I  can  observe  another's  body,  I  cannot 
observe  his  mind.  His  mind  is  not  a  datum  for  me.  I 
know  it,  if  it  can  be  called  "  knowing  ",  only  by  inference, 
and  by  a  dubious  inference  at  that.  Among  recent  writers, 
Mr.  Russell  has  been  most  prominent  in  pressing  this  view 
and  elaborating  its  consequences.  For  him  the  belief  that 
there  are  other  minds,  and  that  they  are  so-and-so,  is  "  psy- 
chologically derivative."  It  is  based  on  the  observation  of 
other  peoples'  bodies  plus  the  analogical  inference  that  when 
other  people's  behaviour  resembles  mine,  they  have  thoughts 
and  feelings  like  those  which  I  have  when  I  behave  as  they 
do.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  most  commonly  accepted  theory, 
but  few  of  those  who  have  accepted  it  have  drawn  out  its 
consequences  with  the  same  ruthless  intellectual  honesty  as 
Russell.  He  recognises  that  the  belief  in  other  minds,  thus 
founded,  is  "soft,"  i.e.,  open  to  doubt;  that  the  evidence 
for  it  is  inconclusive;  that  it  is  an  "  instinctive  belief "  for 
v/hich  the  best  we  can  say  is  that  it  is  a  reasonable  working 
hypothesis,  because  "  it  systematises  a  vast  body  of  facts 
and  never  leads  to  any  consequences  which  there  is  reason 

i  "  \\re  often  know  something  of  both  the  contents  and  the  limita- 
tions of  another's  mind.  And  this  is  at  least  to  say  that  somehow  one 
consciousness  may  overlap  another."  E.  B.  Holt,  Concept  of  Con- 
sciousness, p.  xii. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  213 

to  think  false.  " 1  At  the  same  time  he  would,  clearly,  like 
something  speculatively  "  harder  "  than  this  pragmatic  argu- 
ment, for  he  realises  that  trying  to  do  without  this  belief  has 
devastating  consequences.  At  once  the  testimony  of  others 
becomes  mere  "  noises  and  shapes  ",  and  my  world,  resting 
now  on  a  purely  solipsistic  basis,  shrinks  into  a  miserable 
fragment  of  what  it  is  when  I  allow  the  experiences  of 
others  to  supplement  my  own.2  And  thus  Russell  leaves  us 
in  the  amusing  position  of  holding  a  belief  which  is  at  once 
instinctive  (we  "cannot  help"  it),  logically  unjustifiable, 
and  so  eminently  useful  that  as  reasonable  men,  if  not  as 
philosophers,  we  do  well  to  stick  to  it.  Is  this  not  a  little 
perverse?  Meanwhile,  we  can  but  regret  that  Russell  has 
not  paid  more  attention  to  what  must  underlie  the  analogical 
and  pragmatic  attribution  of  mind  to  others,  viz.,  a  mind's 
acquaintance  with  itself,  and  the  conditions  of  its  pos- 
sibility. 

It  is,  in  fact,  characteristic  of  the  attitude  of  most  of 
those  who  hold  knowledge  of  other  minds  to  be  purely  in- 
ferential, that  whilst  denying  knowledge  by  acquaintance  of 
other  minds,  they  take  self-knowledge  for  granted  as  if 
it  raised  no  problems;  and  then  place  a  burden  upon  the 
analogical  and  pragmatic  arguments  which  they  are  quite 
incapable  of  bearing. 

Russell  condemns  the  analogical  argument  chiefly  on  the 
ground  that  phantasms  in  dreams  appear  to  have  minds,  and 
that  there  the  inference  is  held  to  be  mistaken.  But  there 
are  stronger  reasons  than  this.  The  "  animism  "  of  prirni- 


1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  Lecture  III,  p.  96. 

2  When  in  the  mood  to  eschew  the  luxury  of  soft  beliefs,  Russell 
boldly  sets  up  the  ideal  of  building  all  knowledge,  including  physics, 
on  a  solipsistic  basis,  though  when,  in  the  search   for  hard  data,  he 
turns  his  annihilating  analysis  on  the  "  self ",  it  can  hardly   be  said 
that  any  "ipse"  remains.     At  least,  there  are  hints  that  the  belief 
in  the  identity  of  one's  own  self  from  moment  to  moment,  from  ex- 
perience to  experience,  is  distinctly  soft. 


214  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

tive  peoples  means  an  extension  of  the  belief  in  souls, 
spirits,  or  demons,  far  beyond  what  our  sciences  endorse. 
The  suggestion  that  similarity  to  human  behaviour  is  the 
basis  of  the  extension  is  surely  stretched  to  the  breaking- 
point  when  river,  rain  and  sea,  wind,  storm,  stars  and  stones 
are  regarded  as  animate.  Is  it  not  rather  that  the  primitive 
thinker  fails  to  discriminate  living  and  non-living,  animate 
and  inanimate  than  that  he  hypothetically  endows  with 
conscious  life,  akin  to  his  own,  objects  prima  facie  given  to 
him  as  non-living  and  inanimate?  Moreover,  if  our  knowl- 
edge of  other  minds  really  rested  on  analogy  alone,  it  would 
be  very  much  more  limited  than  it  is,  and  this  not  merely 
because  the  clue  of  similarity  soon  fails  face  to  face  with 
strange  forms  of  life,  but  chiefly  because  each  person's 
acquaintance  with  his  own  expressive  looks  and  gestures  is 
exceedingly  limited,  and  what  we  have  of  it  is  as  much 
mediated  by  perception  of  others  (i.e.,  by  inverse  analogy) 
as  by  self-perception.  The  principle  that  "  we  do  not  see 
ourselves  as  others  see  us  "  covers  a  very  large  range  of 
our  expressive  behaviour,  and  even  frequent  use  of  a  mirror 
would  but  partially  remove  this  handicap.  In  so  far  as  each 
of  us  is  limited  in  his  knowledge  of  how  he  looks  and  be- 
haves under  the  influence  of  certain  experiences,  whereas  he 
is  very  familar  with  the  corresponding  looks  and  gestures 
of  others,  the  situation  assumed  by  the  analogical  argu- 
ment is  non-existent.  Our  criticisms  do  not,  of  course, 
amount  to  the  contention  that  analogy  gives  no  help  at  all. 
On  the  contrary,  for  the  detailed  extension  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  minds  of  others  it  is  of  great  value.  But  we  do  con- 
tend, that  it  cannot  well  be  either  the  only,  or  even  the 
chief,  source  of  the  hypothesis  that  other  bodies  have  minds. 

The  case  is  not  much  better  with  the  pragmatic  argu- 
ment.   An  "  idea  "  (=  an  hypothesis),  we  are  told,  is  true 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  215 

if  it  "  works  ".  Most  plausibly  this  means  that  in  order 
to  verify  an  hypothesis  I  must  act  on  it,  and  judge  by  the 
congruity  of  the  results  with  my  anticipations.  Suppose 
the  other  body  has  a  mind  like  my  own,  it  will  behave,  on 
being  treated  by  me  in  a  certain  way,  as  I  should  myself 
behave  if  treated  in  that  way.  I  make  the  experiment, 
and  if  the  response  agrees  with  my  anticipation,  my  hypothe- 
sis "  works  ".  I  kick  a  stone  and  address  insulting  lan- 
guage to  it:  it  does  not  kick  or  answer  back — hence  it  does 
not  "  feel ",  it  has  no  "  mind."  It  is  easy  to  see  that  it 
depends  entirely  on  the  nature  of  my  hypothesis  whether 
the  evidence  I  obtain  is  positive  or  negative.  What  would 
be  confirmatory  evidence  for  one  theory  of  mind,  might  well 
be  negative  evidence  for  another.  A  fetishist  who  fears  that 
his  stone  idol  will  revenge  itself  on  him  for  having  been 
treated  abusively,  may  regard  an  illness  into  which  he  falls 
as  verification  of  his  fears.  Thus  the  evidence  is  bound 
to  be  ambiguous  so  long  as  a  change  in  my  hypothesis  may 
turn  unfavourable  into  favourable  evidence  and  vice  versa. 
Am  I  to  make  belief  in  God  dependent  on  the  issue  of  a 
prayer  experiment: — if  this  wish  of  mine  is  fulfilled,  I  shall 
know  there  is  a  God;  if  it  is  disappointed,  I  shall  know 
there  is  none?  People  do  argue  like  that,  but  it  is  not 
obviously  a  good  argument.  In  short,  we  may  make  our 
pragmatic  experiment  with  entirely  false  notions  of  what  a 
mind  is  or  does,  and,  consequently  of  what  would,  or  would 
not,  be  evidence  of  mind.  Moreover,  as  in  the  analogy 
theory,  the  experimenter,  ex  hypothesi,  is  familiar  only  with 
his  own  mind;  hence  he  could  recognise  evidence  only  of  a 
similar  type  of  mind.  Evidence  of  types  of  mind  widely 
different  from  his  would  necessarily  be  for  him  negative 
evidence. 

A  somewhat  different  version  of  pragmatic  "  working  "  is 
to  be  found  in  James's  famous  "  automatic  sweetheart " 


216  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

argument.1  James  asks  us  to  suppose  "  a  soulless  body 
which  should  be  absolutely  indistinguishable  from  a  spirit- 
ually animated  maiden,  laughing,  talking,  blushing,  nursing 
us  and  performing  all  feminine  offices  as  tactfully  and 
sweetly  as  if  a  soul  were  in  her  ",  and  then  goes  on,  "  Would 
any  one  regard  her  as  a  full  equivalent?  Certainly  not,  and 
why?  Because,  framed  as  we  are,  our  egoism  craves  above 
all  things  inward  sympathy  and  recognition,  love  and  ad- 
miration. The  outward  treatment  is  valued  mainly  as  an  ex- 
pression, as  a  manifestation  of  the  accompanying  conscious- 
ness believed  in.  Pragmatically,  then,  the  belief  in  the  auto- 
matic sweetheart  would  not  work  .  .  . " 2  The  use  which 
James  proceeds  to  make  of  this  argument  throws  a  revealing 
light  on  it.  With  regard  to  the  universe  it  is  absolutely 
indistinguishable  whether  it  is  the  product  of  blind  forces 
or  the  work  of  a  benevolent  God.  But  the  belief  that  it  is 
the  work  of  God  is  emotionally  more  satisfactory,  hence  it 
works,  hence  God  exists.  Does  not  this  give  the  argument 
away?  In  the  absence  of  differential  evidence,  emotional 
preference  is  to  tip  the  scale.  It  is  the  old  "  will-to-believe  " 
argument  cropping  up.  If,  per  impossibile,  an  automaton 
were  to  be  so  cunningly  contrived  as  to  be  really  "  abso- 
lutely indistinguishable  from  a  spiritually  animated 
maiden  ",  our  pragmatist  lover,  proceeding  happily  on  the 
hypothesis  soothing  to  his  vanity,  would  get  from  his  auto- 
matic sweetheart  all  the  love  and  sympathy  he  could  pos- 
sibly want  in  the  only  way  he  could  possibly  get  them,  viz., 
in  the  look  of  her  eyes,  the  tone  of  her  voice,  the  caressing 
touch,  the  tender  embrace.  Nor  would  he  ever  discover  his 
mistake:  the  "  absolutely  indistinguishable  "  saves  him  from 

1  The  Meaning  of  Truth,  p.  189,  note. 

2  There  is  a  good  example  of  the  automatic  sweetheart  in   Offen- 
bach's   Tales  from   Hoffmann.     There   the   automaton   is    discovered 
when  her  mechanism  goes  wrong  and  her  behaviour  becomes  unpleas- 
antly distinguishable  from  that  of  a  living  maiden. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  117 

that  awful  fate.  Never,  surely,  did  philosopher  invent  an 
argument  which  more  securely  entrenched  sentimental  illu- 
sions. If  the  presence  of  mind  in  a  human  body  is  not 
differentially  evident,  the  game  is  up.  The  hypothesis  that 
there  is  a  mind  must  be  capable  of  verification  by  a  recog- 
nisable difference  between  facts  which  corroborate  it  and 
facts  which  refute  it.  In  the  absence  of  such  a  difference, 
emotional  preference  is  no  better  than  instinctive  belief, 
and  philosophy  becomes  the  gentle  art  of  mistaking  pleasing 
make-believe  for  truth.  Of  course,  the  pragmatic  method  of 
verification  by  experiment  presupposes  the  possibility  of 
getting  differential  evidence,  and  as  such  it  has  a  legitimate 
place  in  our  dealings  with  other  minds.  But,  like  the 
analogy-argument,  it  helps  rather  to  add  detail  and  precision 
to  our  knowledge  of  others,  than  to  mediate  the  initial  step 
from  the  existence  of  one's  own  mind  as  a  datum  to  the 
existence  of  other  minds  as  an  inference. 

Its  main  fault,  however,  is  that  it  does  not  examine  the 
principle  of  the  privacy  of  each  mind,  of  its  isolation  from 
every  other.  So  long  as  each  mind  is  supposed  to  be  im- 
prisoned in  its  own  inwardness,  no  intellectual  acrobatics 
will  help  it  to  burst  the  walls  of  its  prison  and  have  inter- 
course with  its  fellows. 

A  half-way  stage  on  the  way  to  the  principle  of  over- 
lapping minds  is  represented  by  the  theory  of  empathy 
(Einfuhlung)  in  its  various  forms.  Broadly  speaking,  this 
theory  appeals  to  the  feelings  we  experience  in  contact  with 
other  minds.  Expressive  gestures  still  play  their  part,  but 
they  are  used  no  longer  by  way  of  comparison  and  analogy. 
Instead  we  are  bidden  to  note  the  feelings  which  they  evoke 
in  us,  and  to  find  in  these  feelings  our  evidence  for  our 
knowledge  of  other  minds. 

Perhaps  the  best  approach  to  the  theory  of  Einjuhlung, 


218  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

as  applied  to  the  knowledge  of  other  minds1  is  through  a 
consideration  of  sympathy,  in  the  literal  sense  of  "  shar- 
ing ",  as  we  say,  another's  feeling.  What  exactly  does  this 
"  sharing  "  mean?  "  I  am  as  pleased  about  your  success 
as  you  are  ".  "  I  feel  your  sorrow  as  much  as  you  do." 
"  Your  joy  is  also  mine  ".  Let  us  note  the  precise  point  of 
this  sympathy.  In  order  to  share  another's  feeling  I  must 
not  merely  be  pleased  at  his  pleasure  or  be  sorry  that  any- 
thing should  grieve  him,  for  in  order  to  experience  these 
secondary  or  response  emotions  about  the  other's  emotions, 
I  must  somehow  know  what  these  emotions  of  his.  are.  It 
is  precisely  the  method  of  this  "  knowing  "  which  is  in 
question.  Clearly,  unless  we  are  to  invoke  telepathy,  he 
must  somehow  show  me  what  he  feels.  But  how  can  he 
show  me  his  feelings  except  by  means  of  outward  signs 
such  as  sounds  and  gestures?  Here  the  empathy  theory 
seeks  to  open  a  way  for  direct  experience.  The  other's 
words  and  actions,  it  holds,  evoke  in  me  not  merely  the 
same  emotion  as  his,  but  an  emotion  which  I  feel  at  once  as 
his  and  not  as  mine.  For  this  emotion  fuses  with,  is  felt  by 
me  as  inseparably  part  of,  or  one  with,  the  gestures  I  see, 
the  words  I  hear;  and  these,  though  seen  and  heard  by 
me,  are  not  my  gestures  and  my  sounds.  A  cry  of  terror 
and  I  tremble,  not  because,  in  the  first  instance,  I  am  afraid 
for  myself,  but  because  I  "  hear  ",  i.e.,  immediately  feel,  the 
terror  expressed  in  that  cry.  I  "  see  "  a  look  of  pride  in 
another's  eye.  But  such  "  seeing  "  is  precisely  Einfiihlung. 
For  what  I  see,  strictly,  is  not  pride,  but  the  colour,  shape 
and  movements  of  the  eye.  The  pride  is  "  expressed  "  and 
as  such  is  felt  by  me,  but  I  feel  it,  not  as  my  pride,  but 
precisely  as  the  pride  of  that  other  whose  eye  I  am  looking 

1  Theodpr  Lipps,  the  father  of  the  empathy  theory,  developed  it  in 
the  first  instance  as  an  instrument  for  the  analysis  of  aesthetic  ex- 
perience. Its  application  to  our  problem  is  of  secondary  interest  for 
him,  and  not  beyond  doubt  in  its  details. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  219 

at.  I  feel  pride,  but  I  do  not  feel  proud  myself  in  the  sense 
in  which  to  feel  proud  is  to  be  proud.  The  pride  I  feel  is 
his,  not  mine.  Even  if  he  looks  at  me  superciliously,  I  feel 
his  contempt  in  his  look,  whilst  at  the  same  time  I  may  feel, 
on  my  own  behalf,  resentful  or  humiliated.1  Perhaps  the 
most  challenging  way  of  putting  the  empathy  theory  is  to 
say  that,  for  it,  a  feeling  which  may  be  called  "  mine  " 
in  the  sense  that  I  feel  it,  is  yet  felt  by  me  not  as  mine, 
but  as  another's,  and  this  not  by  way  of  inference  from 
data,  but  as  a  genuine  character  of  the  data  themselves.  Its 
merit  is  to  draw  attention  to  experiences  to  which  the  rigid 
distinction  of  mine  and  yours  is  but  awkwardly  applicable. 
It  leads  us  to  question  the  almost  legalistic  attitude  of  the 
privacy-principle,  which  bids  us  say,  in  effect,  "  Here  is 
my  mind,  there  is  yours;  my  mind  has  its  own  thoughts  and 
feelings,  your  mind  has  yours;  and  it  is  impossible  for  what 
is  mine  to  be  yours." 

To  the  perspectives  which  are  opened  up  by  ques- 
tioning this  principle  we  shall  return.  Meanwhile,  we  can 
learn  something  further  from  a  different  form  of  the 
empathy  theory  which  Professor  S.  Alexander  has  devel- 
oped.2 Whilst  still  clinging  to  the  view  that  it  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  consciousness  not  to  be  shareable,  Alex- 
ander holds  that  each  mind  must  have  a  clue  to  the  other 
jnind  in  some  direct  feeling,  or  modification  of  feeling, 
of  its  own.  "  The  clue  would  seem  to  be  found  in  those 
elementary  experiences,  on  the  level  of  instinct,  where 
cooperation,  reciprocation,  or  rivalry  is  necessary  in  order 
that  the  experience  should  have  its  full  flavour.  .  .  .  Thus 
it  (tenderness)  is  felt  more  towards  an  affectionate  than 
towards  a  cold  child,  and  it  is  felt  more  and  differently  to  a 
child  and  to  a  puppy.  .  .  .  We  may  press  a  yielding  object 

*Cf.  Lipps,  JEsthetik,  pp.  106,  140. 

2  See  his  article  on  Collective  Willing  and  Truth,  in  Mind,  N.  S., 
No.  85,  pp.  17. 


220  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.  VIII 

and  become  aware  of  its  soft  firmness  and  have  besides  the 
experience  of  our  own  effort  of  grasping.  But  there  is  all 
the  difference  between  this  and  the  experience  of  a  hand 
which  in  any  degree  returns  the  pressure  of  ours.  .  .  .  The 
experience  of  another  man's  trying  to  get  the  same  thing  as 
yourself  is  a  direct  suggestion  that  he  is  wanting  it,  and  is  a 
different  experience  from  seeking  the  object  and  being  merely 
obstructed.  .  .  .  Thus  the  immediate  basis  of  our  experi- 
ence that  another  person  exists  is  a  direct  ingredient  in 
certain  feelings,  which  ingredient  is  not  present  if  that  other 
being  were  inanimate  or  unconscious."  On  this  basis  Alex- 
ander disposes  of  the  automaton.  "  An  automaton  might 
look  and  even  act  like  a  child,  but  if  it  did  not  participate 
in  our  behaviour  to  it,  we  should  miss  the  flavour  of  tender- 
ness." Clearly,  for  Alexander,  no  automaton  could  be 
"  absolutely  indistinguishable "  from  a  conscious  person, 
for  there  is  a  difference  of  behaviour  which  we  directly  feel. 
A  conscious  person  "  responds  to  our  action  and  fulfils  it." 
From  this  point  on,  the  recognition  of  something  common 
in  the  experiences  of  different  minds  becomes  increasingly 
manifest.  For  there  is  at  least  a  common  situation  which 
the  several  minds  are  experiencing  and  with  which  they 
are  dealing.  "  It  is  not  because  under  similar  circumstances 
foreign  bodies  exhibit  behaviour  like  our  own  that  we  be- 
lieve them  to  be  minds  like  ourselves,  by  an  act  of  inference; 
but  because  in  one  and  the  same  situation  they  take  part 
with  ourselves  in  a  joint  action  in  which  their  part  may  or 
may  not  be  like  our  own,  and  because  without  such  response 
on  their  side  our  own  experience  is  incomplete."  It  is  clear 
here  that  in  this  appeal  to  social  experience,  or  "  intersub- 
jective  intercourse  ",  the  common  situation  makes  possible 
the  experience  of  the  other  mind's  response  or  opposition,  co- 
operation or  competition.  For  Alexander  this  "  instinctive  " 
experience  of  other  minds  is  open  to  animals  in  their  rela- 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  221 

tion  to  other  animals  and  to  men.  Among  men,  dealing 
with  one  another,  the  experience  becomes  "  reflective  "  and 
is.  vastly  extended  by  speech,  and  by  "  combination  of  wills 
in  practical  affairs  or  of  intellects  in  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge." Notwithstanding  these  admissions,  however,  Alex- 
ander reasserts  that  assurance  of  another  mind's  existence 
is  gained  only  by  an  "  act  of  faith  ",  and  that  knowledge 
of  its  nature  remains  wholly  symbolic.  "  We  transfer  the 
contents  (of  our  own  consciousness)  to  this  foreign  being, 
and  give  indefinite  scope  to  our  sympathetic  imagination 
in  this  construction  ".  This  transference,  however,  is  based, 
for  Alexander,  on  empathy,  not  into  the  expressive  move- 
ments of  another,  but  into  the  objective  situation  in  which 
the  other  acts.  By  imagination  I  put  myself  into  the 
other's  place  and  thus  experience  how  it  feels  to  be  in  such 
a  situation.  "  I  do  not  feel  your  feeling,  but  I  read  my 
feeling  into  your  imagined  position." 

Alexander's  view  is  particularly  instructive  because  his 
very  attempt  to  effect  a  synthesis  of  privacy  plus  inference 
(or  "  transference  ")  with  social  intercourse  plus  the  shar- 
ing of  a  common  world,  exhibits  very  clearly  under  the  pres- 
sure of  what  considerations  the  former  view  is  brought  to 
its  breaking-point. 

This  brings  us,  finally,  to  theories  which  take  their  stand 
either  on  social  intercourse  or  on  the  common  world. 

The  former,  with  a  good  deal  of  difference  in  detail, 
appeal,  one  and  all,  to  the  principles:  (a)  that  self-knowl- 
edge is  possible  only  in  a  social  medium;  (b)  that  most  of 
the  purposes  of  an  individual  mind  are  social,  involving 
not  only  cooperation  with  other  minds,  but  functional  dif- 
ferentiation of  members  in  a  social  system;  (c)  that  the 
individual  owes  his  knowledge  of  the  universe  far  more  to 
communication  from  others  than  to  his  private  efforts. 


222  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VHI 

Thus  all  these  theories  are  innocent  of  any  flirtation  with 
solipsism.  They  point  out  that  the  very  facts  which  are 
commonly  quoted  as  supporting  the  privacy,  or  mutual  iso- 
lation, of  minds— e.g.,  that  I  cannot  feel  my  neighbour's 
toothache,  nor  he  mine;  that  no  one  can  know  what  goes  on 
inside  my  mind  unless  I  give  outward  signs,  and  that  by 
posing,  pretending,  lying,  I  can  not  only  conceal  my  mind, 
but  mislead  the  inferences  of  others — have  point  only  in  a 
medium  of  social  relations.  They  argue  that  we  first  learn 
about  ourselves  from  and  through  our  fellows;  that  each  of 
us  gets  to  know  his  own  mind  because  he  is  treated  by 
others  as  having  a  mind  of  his  own,  long  before  he  is  able 
to  discover  that  fact  for  himself;  that  it  is  only  through 
the  minds  of  one's  fellows  that  one's  own  fragmentary 
glimpses  of  the  universe  are  completed.1  Or,  again,  it  has 
been  argued  that  each  of  us,  as  an  actively  willing  subject, 
or  ego,  directly  acknowledges  other  subjects,  each  with  a 
will  of  his  own.  Will  meets  will,  in  conflict  or  cooperation, 
and  demands  to  be  acknowledged.  Social  life  is  a  tissue  of 
such  mutual  acknowledgments,  and  in  these  we  must  look 
for  the  basis  of  our  knowledge  of  each  other's  minds.  Even 
the  minds  of  animals  are  known  to  us  only  by  such  an  act 
of  acknowledgment.2  Or,  lastly,  it  may  be  bluntly  asserted 
that  "  it  is  a  pure  blunder  of  subjectivist  psychology  to 
assume  that  somehow  the  fact  of  my  own  existence  as  a 
centre  of  experience  is  a  primitive  revelation.  .  .  .  Self- 
knowledge,  apart  from  the  knowledge  of  myself  as  a  being 
with  aims  and  purposes  conditioned  by  those  of  like  beings 
in  social  relations  with  myself,  is  an  empty  and  senseless 
word." 8 

As  is  clear  frorn  the  very  language  employed  by  these 
writers,  they  are  thinking  of  self-knowledge,  rather  than 

1  See  e.g.,  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  vol.  ii,  ch.  iv. 

2  Cf.  Miinsterberg,  Grundzuge  der  Psychologic,  ch.  ii. 

3  A.  E.  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  205. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  223 

of  mind-knowledge.  But  the  very  fact  that  the  language  of 
"  self  "  and  "  other  "  comes  so  readily  to  our  lips  when  we 
are  talking  about  minds  helps  to  emphasise  that  the  social 
relations  of  mind  to  mind  are  the  medium  in  which  mind- 
knowledge  arises.  This  suggests  that  the  individualistic 
standpoint  of  traditional  psychology,  basing  itself  simply  on 
the  existence  of  a  multitude  of  individual  minds,  and  thus 
led  to  study  mind  as  a  class-character,  involves  an  abstrac- 
tion similar  to  that  of  considering  human  beings  merely  as 
specimens  repeating  the  type  of  an  animal  species,  instead  of 
as  differentiated  and  organized  in  social  systems.  The  stu- 
dent who  comes  to  the  study  of  mind  from  the  side  of 
biology  is  easily  tempted  to  think  of  mind  merely  as  a 
class-character  repeated,  no  doubt  with  variations  of  degree 
and  kind,  in  all  the  members  of  an  animal  species.  He  can- 
not learn  too  soon  that,  from  this  point  of  view,  social 
relations,  and  the  higher  forms  of  mental  life  generally, 
tend  to  be  either  ignored,  or  not  to  be  treated  on  their 
merits. 

A  second  important  lesson  which  the  social  theories  of 
mind  bring  to  light  is  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  "  mine  ". 
It  is  due  to  this  ambiguity  that  theories  so  diametrically  op- 
posite as  the  "  privacy  "  view  and  the  "  social "  view  are 
in  the  field.  We  must  seriously  consider  the  possibility 
that  when  the  upholders  of  the  privacy  view  say  that  my 
own  mind  is  a  datum,  yours  an  inference,  they  are  using 
"  my  "  in  a  different  sense  from  that  in  which  the  upholders 
of  the  social  view  maintain  that  "  I "  and  "  you  ",  myself 
and  yourself,  my  mind  and  other  minds,  are  correlates;  that 
the  distinction  between  them  is  developed  pari  passu;  that 
both  are  equally  inferential,  equally  concepts  or  "  ideal 
constructions  ".  The  familiar  criticism  of  the  privacy  view 
— "  If  I  am  acquainted  only  with  my  own  mind  as  a  datum, 
how  do  I  know  it  as  l  mine '?  What  right  have  I  to  call  it 


224  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

mine?  '  Mine  '  has  meaning  only  by  contrast  with  '  not- 
mine  '  ('  yours  '  or  an  '  other's  ')  " — turns  wholly  on  the 
ambiguity  of  the  personal  pronoun.  The  fact  is  that 
"  mine  "  may  be  used  either  in  a  social  sense,  or  else  like 
"  this  ",  "  here  ",  "  now  ",  as  a  mere  linguistic  synonym  for 
"  immediate  experience  ",  or  "  datum  ".  The  advocate  of 
the  privacy  view,  when  he  talks  of  "  his  "  mind  as  a  datum, 
is  talking  tautologically.  He  really  means  these  present 
feelings  and  thoughts  here  and  now.  If  calling  them  "  his  " 
is  anything  but  another  way  of  saying,  "  these  .  .  .  here 
and  now,"  if  it  means  his-not-another's,  he  is,  of  course,  at 
once  guilty  of  the  fallacy  with  which  the  advocate  of  the 
social  view  charges  him.1 

The  point  comes  out  more  clearly  in  Russell's  statement 
of  the  privacy  view  than  in  that  of  any  other  writer.  With 
our  clue,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  inference  to  other  minds 
from  the  datum  of  my  own  is  but  a  special  case  of  what  is, 
for  Russell,  perhaps  the  most  crucial  problem  of  philosophy, 
viz.,  how  to  justify  quite  generally  the  inference  to  the  exist- 
ence of  non-data  from  the  existence  of  data.  In  short,  it  is 
the  problem  of  "  transcendence  ".  But,  of  course,  the  full 
meaning  of  "  my  mind "  or  "  my  self "  transcends  any 
datum  as  emphatically  as  does  "  your  mind  "  or  "  another 
self."  The  minds  which  the  psychologist  studies  cannot 
be  saved  by  eschewing  transcendence  and  inference,  and 
falling  back  on  bare  data.  They  can  be  saved  only  by 
that  synthetic  and  cumulative  organisation  of  data  which 
Russell  himself  calls  "  logical  construction  ".  Indeed  Rus- 
sell has  made  an  ingenious  attempt  to  construct  a  world 
which,  in  his  own  words,  "  can,  with  a  certain  amount  of 
trouble,  be  used  to  interpret  the  crude  facts  of  sense,  the 

1  A  fuller  statement  of  this  ambiguity  will  be  found  in  the  article 
on  Solipsism  which  the  writer  has  contributed  to  Hastings's  Encyclo- 
pedia of  Ethics  and  Religion. 

2  Cf.  above,  p.  23,  footnote. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  225 

facts  of  physics,  and  the  facts  of  psychology." 1  More  than 
that — in  suggesting  that  the  physicists'  construct  of  a  ma- 
terial thing  and  the  psychologists'  construct  of  a  mind  differ 
only  in  that  both  classify  the  same  appearances  from  dif- 
ferent points  of  view,  he  comes  very  near  to  the  view  that 
a  mind  is,  in  E.  B.  Holt's  language,  a  "  cross-section  "  of 
the  universe." 2 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  group  of  social  theories,  if 
for  convenience  we  may  so  label  them,  viz.,  the  theories  for 
which  minds  are  objects  of  observation  to  each  other 
through  the  medium  of  a  common  world. 

To  the  "  objective  "  and  "  behaviouristic  "  motives  in 
present-day  psychology,  and  to  the  "  realistic  "  motives  in 
present-day  philosophy,  which  reinforce  theories  of  this 
type,  we  have  already  alluded.  Their  common  principle  is 
to  analyse  a  mind  in  terms  of  its  "  contents  ",  which  con- 
tents are  at  the  same  time  regarded  as  being,  and  remain- 
ing, constituents  of  the  object-world,  capable  of  becoming 
simultaneously  objects  of  other  minds.  There  are  three  con- 
verging arguments  which  make  theories  of  this  type  ex- 
ceedingly plausible,  notwithstanding  an  effect  of  paradox 
which  they  almost  invariably  produce  on  first  acquaintance. 

(a)  The  first  argument  appeals  quite  frankly  to  the 
method  of  observation  of  behaviour,  which  is  the  chief 
method  of  animal  pschology,  and  plays  no  small  part  in 
human  intercourse  and  in  the  psychological  laboratory, 
though  outweighed  among  human  beings  by  communication 
through  language.  For  the  success  of  this  method  it  is 
essential  that  the  question,  "  What  is  a  creature  conscious 

1  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World,  p.  93.  The  text  has 
"physiology"  but  the  context  shows,  I  think,  that  this  must  be  a 
slip  for  "  psychology  ". 

*  The  main  difference  is  that  Russell's  mind-classes  do  not  overlap, 
do  not  have  members  in  common,  whereas  Holt's  cross-sections  do. 


226  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

of?  "  should  be  answerable,  not  by  inference  about  the 
creature's  imperceptible  mind,  but  by  observation  of  its  per- 
ceptible actions.  It  must  be  interpreted  to  mean,  not  "  What 
goes  on  in  the  privacy  of  the  creature's  inner  conscious- 
ness? "  but  "  What  is  the  creature  looking  at,  listening  to, 
sniffing  at,  digging  for,  watching  for,  etc. — in  short,  what 
is  it  doing?  "  In  order  that  the  question  in  this  form  may 
be  answerable,  the  object  which  the  creature  under  observa- 
tion is  responding  to,  or  interested  in,  must  be  perceptible 
to  the  observer,  too.  He  must  be  able  to  identify  it  among 
the  objects  which  he  is  himself  perceiving.  It  must  be  an 
item  in  the  environment  within  which  he  is  watching  the 
creature's  behaviour.1  The  "  world "  as  the  observer  is 
aware  of  it,  may  be  much  more  comprehensive  and  varied 
than  the  "  world "  as  the  creature  under  observation  is 
aware  of  it.  But  the  important  point  is  that  the  creature's 
world  is  contained  within  the  observer's — that,  to  this  ex- 

1  The  argument,  e.g.,  of  von  Uexkuell's  Die  Umwelt  und  die  Innen- 
welt  der  Tiere,  rests  throughout  on  the  above  principle ;  and  so,  of 
course,  do  the  explicit  contributions  to  "  behaviourism ",  like  John 
Watson's  Behaviour.  For  an  elaborately  worked-out  example  from 
the  observation  of  human  behaviour,  see  E.  B.  Holt,  The  Freudian 
Wish,  esp.  pp.  85  ff.  Its  application  to  language  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  following  quotation  from  R.  B.  Perry's  Present  Philosophical 
Tendencies,  Part  V,  Ch.  xii,  §  8,  p.  291 :  "  Language  does  not  arise 
as  the  external  manifestation  of  an  internal  idea,  but  as  the  means 
of  fixing  and  identifying  abstract  aspects  of  experience.  If  I  wish 
to  direct  your  attention  to  the  ring  on  my  finger,  it  is  sufficient  for 
me  to  point  to  it  or  hand  it  to  you.  In  seeing  me  thus  deal  with  the 
ring,  you  know  that  it  engages  my  attention,  and  there  occurs  a  mo- 
ment of  communication  in  which  pur  minds  unite  on  the  object.  The 
ring  figures  in  your  mind  even  as  it  does  in  mine ;  indeed  the  fact  that 
the  ring  does  so  figure  in  my  mind  will  probably  occur  to  you  when 
it  does  not  to  me.  If,  however,  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
yellowness  of  the  ring,  it  will  not  do  simply  to  handle  it.  The  whole 
object  will  not  suffice  as  a  means  of  identifying  its  element.  Hence 
the  need  of  a  system  of  symbols  complex  enough  to  keep  pace  with 
the  subtlety  of  discrimination.  Now  the  important  thing  to  bear  in 
mind  is  the  fact,  that  as  a  certain  practical  dealing  with  bodies  con- 
stitutes gross  communication,  so  language  constitutes  refined  com- 
munication. There  is  no  difference  of  objectivity  or  subjectivity. 
In  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  mind  is  open  to  mind,  making  possible 
a  coalescence  of  content  and  the  convergence  of  action  on  a  common 
object." 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  227 

tent,  the  two  worlds  coincide,  or  "  overlap  ",  or,  at  least, 
can  be  made  to  coincide.  Instead  of  speaking  of  "  two 
worlds  coinciding  ",  we  might  equally  well  speak  of  a  "  com- 
mon "  world  for  both,  in  fact  of  "  one  "  world  present  to 
two  minds.  And  the  principle  is,  obviously,  capable  of 
extension  to  any  number  of  minds.  When  I  watch  a  cat  ly- 
ing in  wait  for  its  prey  near  a  mousehole,  do  I  not  know 
what  she  is  thinking  of?  When  I  see  people  in  the  street 
turning  their  heads,  and,  on  looking  around  myself,  per- 
ceive a  trolley-car  off  the  rails,  do  I  not  know  what  they 
have  in  mind?  The  whole  issue  may  be  reduced  just  to 
this:  should  such  everyday  experiences  as  these  be  inter- 
preted on  the  principle  of  a  common  world,  in  which  situa- 
tions constantly  arise  such  that  each  can  say  that  he  per- 
ceives what  others  perceive,  and  that  what  things  mean  to 
him  they  mean  to  others?  Or  should  he  "  introject ",  i.e., 
treat  what  he  perceives  and  what  others  perceive  as  so  many 
"  private  ",  "  inaccessible  ",  "  mutually  exclusive  "  contents 
of  consciousness?  The  alternatives  are  private,  or  "  sub- 
jective ",  sensations  and  ideas,  which,  being  mine,  cannot 
be  yours,  being  yours,  cannot  be  mine,  versus  common  and 
public  objects,  which  we — you  and  I — not  only  share  but 
know  that  we  share. 

(b)  The  second  argument  tries  to  bring  even  introspec- 
tion to  the  support  of  the  second  of  these  alternatives.  To 
introspect  is  to  take  stock  of  the  contents  of  one's  mind. 
But  an  enumeration  of  these  brings  to  light  nothing  but 
objects  belonging  to  the  universe  at  large,  and  actually,  or 
potentially,  open  to  other  minds.  The  things  I  see  are,  or 
may  be,  seen  by  others;  the  sounds  I  hear — as  when  a  crowd 
listens  to  a  speech — are  not  debarred  from  reaching  other 
ears  by  the  fact  that  they  reach  mine.  Any  object  in  the 
world  which  is,  or  may  become,  a  content  of  my  mind,  is, 
or  may  become,  an  object  also  of  other  minds.  And,  in 


228  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

any  case,  it  remains  always  just  the  object  it  is  in  the  world. 
The  particular  selection,  or  grouping,  of  items  in  my  mind 
may  be  peculiar  to  me  and  private,  but  the  items  themselves 
are  not.  "  In  so  far  as  I  divide  them  into  elements,  the 
contents  of  my  mind  exhibit  no  generic  character.  I  find 
the  quality  "  blue  ",  but  this  I  ascribe  also  to  the  book 
which  lies  before  me  on  the  table;  I  find  "hardness  ",  but 
this  I  ascribe  also  to  the  physical  adamant;  or  I  find  num- 
ber, which  my  neighbour  finds  also  in  his  mind.  In  other 
words,  the  elements  of  the  introspective  manifold  are  in 
themselves  neither  peculiarly  mental  nor  peculiarly  mine: 
they  are  neutral  and  interchangeable.  It  is  only  with  res- 
pect to  their  grouping  and  interrelations  that  the  elements 
of  mental  content  exhibit  any  peculiarity." * 

(c)  The  third  argument  seeks  to  meet  the  plausible  ob- 
jection that  an  analysis  of  mind  cannot  be  given  in  terms 
only  of  contents  or  objects,  but  must  recognise,  over  and 
above  all  objects,  the  existence  of  acts  of  mind,  or  else  of 
an  indefinable  entity  or  quality  of  "  awareness  ",  in  virtue 
of  which  alone  an  object  can  be  said  "  to  be  presented  to  " 
a  mind,  or  "  to  be  its  content ".  English  realists,  from 
G.  E.  Moore  and  Bertrand  Russell  to  S.  Alexander,  have 
been  unanimous  in  holding  to  this  analysis  of  experience  into 
act  and  object  (sensing  and  sense-datum,  thinking  and 
concept,  etc.},  identifying  the  act  or  awareness  as  the  pe- 
culiarly mental  or  conscious  factor  in  the  situation.  They 
take  this  analysis  for  granted  as  self-evident.  Alexander 
explicitly  defends  it  as  an  "  intuition  ".2  American  real- 
ists and  behaviourists  deny  this  whole  analysis;  they  re- 
fuse to  recognise  any  distinctive  mental  act.  What  activity 
there  is  belongs  to  the  body,  or  more  specifically  to  the 
central  nervous  system  (including  the  sense-organs).  The 

1  Perry,  loc.  cit.,  p.  277. 

2  The  Basis  of  Realism,  p.  7  (Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy, 
vol.  vi). 


ll 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  229 

verbs  naming  mental  acts,  looking,  hearing,  thinking,  etc., 
are  all  to  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  specific  responses,  or 
"  motor  sets "  in  operation,  analysable  in  physiological 
terms.  The  alleged  evidence  of  introspection  in  favour  of 
a  peculiar  mental  activity  is  flatly  denied.  The  supposed 
"  feeling  "  of  activity  is  shown  to  consist  of  movement  sensa- 
tions (or  rather  "  sense-data  "),  thus  confirming  the  view 
that  what  activity  there  is,  is  bodily  activity.  The  body 
is  the  principium  individuationis.  Its  position  in  the  uni- 
verse is  always  unique,  and  so  is  the  history  of  the  nervous 
system  of  each  of  us,  which  determines  so  largely  what  each 
of  us  perceives,  thinks,  desires,  is  interested  in.  This  is 
the  germ  of  truth  which  the  "  privacy  "  theory  tries  to  pre- 
serve by  setting  up  imperceptible,  inward  consciousnesses, 
isolated  from  each  other  and  from  the  world  of  objects; 
hence,  in  principle,  incapable  of  cooperation  in  knowledge 
or  in  conduct.1 

1  See  Perry,  loc.  cit.,  Ch.  xii,  §  6,  pp.  254,  5  (against  W.  James)  ; 
Ch.  xiii,  §9,  pp.  321-3  (against  G.  E.  Moore).  It  is  interesting  to  add 
an  argument,  which  without  any  influence  from  realism  and  behaviour- 
ism, reaches  a  similar  conclusion  with  an  effect  of  fresh  observation. 
"  I  have  sometimes  sat  looking  at  a  comrade,  speculating  on  this  mys- 
terious isolation  of  self  from  self.  Why  are  we  so  made  that  I  gaze 
and  see  of  thee  only  thy  wall,  and  never  thee?  This  wall  of  thee 
is  but  a  movable  part  of  the  wall  of  my  world ;  and  I  also  am  a 
wall  to  thee:  we  look  out  at  one  another  from  behind  masks.  How 
would  it  seem  if  my  mind  could  but  once  be  within  thine ;  and  we 
could  meet  and  without  barrier  be  with  each  other?  And  then  it  has 
fallen  upon  me  like  a  shock — as  when  one  thinking  himself  alone  has 
felt  a  presence — But  I  am  in  thy  soul.  These  things  around  me  are 
in  thy  experience.  They  are  thy  own;  When  I  touch  them  and  move 
them  I  change  thee.  When  I  look  on  them,  I  see  what  thou  seest; 
and  I  experience  thy  very  experience.  For  where  art  thou?  Not  there, 
behind  those  eyes,  within  that  head,  in  darkness,  fraternizing  with 
chemical  processes.  Of  these,  in  my  own  case,  I  know  nothing,  and 
will  know  nothing;  for  my  existence  is  spent  not  behind  my  wall, 
but  in  front  of  it.  ...  And  there  art  thou,  also.  This  world  in 
which  I  live,  is  the  world  of  thy  soul:  and  being  within  that.  I  am 
within  thee.  I  can  imagine  no  contact  more  real  and  thrilling  than 
this;  that  we  should  meet  and  share  identity,  not  through  ineffable 
inner  depths  (alone),  but  here  through  the  foregrounds  of  common 
experience;  and  that  thou  shouldst  be — not  behind  that  mask — but 
here,  pressing  with  all  thy  consciousness  upon  me,  containing  me,  and 
these  things  of  mine.  This  is  reality:  and  having  seen  it  thus,  I  can 


230  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

The  dispute  about  mental  activity  between  the  English 
and  American  realists  illuminates  just  what  it  is  in  the 
"  relational  theory  of  consciousness  " — to  use  R.  B.  Perry's 
term  for  it— that  produces  the  effect  of  paradox  alluded  to 
above.  In  three  ways,  chiefly,  is  this  paradox  felt. 

(i)  This  theory  of  consciousness  seems  to  leave  out  "  con- 
sciousness ".  The  English  thinkers'  emphasis  on  acts  and 
awareness  seems  much  more  like  what  we  mean,  or  think 
we  mean,  when  we  talk  of  "  being  conscious  "  of  something. 
A  theory  of  consciousness,  like  that  of  S.  Alexander,  who 
regards  it  as  a  new  quality  arising,  in  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion, when  the  organism  has  developed  the  requisite  nervous 
system,  seems  to  give  the  body  its  due  and  still  save  the 
mind  as  a  non-physical  something,  wholly  sui  generis,  en- 
dowed with  the  function  of  "  enjoying  "  itself,  and  "  con- 
templating "  the  object-world  within  which  it  has  arisen.1 
Its  weakness  is  that,  when  we  have  acknowledged  that  there 
is  this  indefinable  awareness,  we  have  exhausted  all  that 
there  is  of  interest  in  it.2  The  philosopher's  interest  turns 
at  once  to  the  concrete  universe — the  field  of  knowledge  and 
action.  Provided  that  universe  is  saved,  it  may  well  seem 
a  small  matter  whether,  in  addition  to  the  physiological 
responses,  which  are  common  ground  to  both  sides,  there 
is,  or  there  is  not,  an  indefinable  something  to  be  called 
"  awareness  ".  The  whole  dispute  is  one  of  the  most  curi- 
ous in  the  history  of  psychology,  and  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
it  is  to  be  settled,  if  treated  as  a  question  of  evidence,  or, 
at  least,  of  mere  introspecting  or  intuiting.  Thus  treated, 

never  again  be  frightened  into  monadism  by  reflections  which  have 
strayed  from  this  guiding  insight"  (W.  E.  Hocking,  The  Meaning 
of  God  in  Human  Experience,  pp.  265,  6). 

AA  similar  concept  of  consciousness,  as  a  "mental  light"  revealing 
the  universe,  has  been  advocated  among  American  thinkers  by  Pro- 
fessor J.  E.  Boodin  in  A  Realistic  Universe. 

2  The  above  remark  requires  to  be  qualified  by  acknowledging  that, 
for  S.  Alexander,  at  least,  beauty  requires  the  co-operation  of  mind 
and  object  (The  Basis  of  Realism,  in  Proceedings  of  the  British  Acad- 
emy, vol.  vi). 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  231 

it  looks  as  if  what  is  unanimously  by  realists  on  one 
side  of  the  Atlantic  is  nearly  as  unanimously  not  found  by 
realists  on  the  other  side.  Reality,  clearly,  is  having  its 
little  joke  with  the  realists.  Introspection  does  not  settle 
the  question,  because  introspection  cannot  be  kept  clear 
of  theory.  To  report  findings  in  descriptive  terms  is  at 
once  to  theorise.  There  is  no  getting  away  from  that. 
Hence  the  real  moral  of  the  dispute  is  that  "  meanings  ", 
i.e.,  theories,  of  consciousness  are  at  variance.  We  shall 
suggest  below  what  may  be  the  correct  solution. 

(2)  The  theory  of  minds  overlapping  in  a  common  world 
may  be  accused  of  pressing  identity  in  two  directions  to 
points  where  obvious  differences  begin  to  be  ignored,    (a) 
It  requires  restatement  at  least  to  the  extent  of  making 
room  within  its  general  frame-work  for  all  the  facts  com- 
monly summed  up  in  the  principle  of  the  "  relativity  of 
sensations  ".    However  right  it  is  in  insisting  on  the  funda- 
mental truth  that  two  persons  can  perceive,  and  recognise 
that  they  perceive,  literally  the  same  real  thing,  it  must  also 
be  made  to  include  the  fact  that,  owing  to  differences  of  posi- 
tion, distance,  angle  of  vision,  condition  of  sense-organs,  past 
history  of  the  nervous  system,  there  are  differences  in  what 
each  perceives  of  the  identical  object.    To  develop,  because 
of  these  differences,  a  new  monadology,  as  Russell  does  in 
effect,  is  as  one-sided  as  to  insist  on  complete  identity.    Ap- 
pearances are  not  to  be  saved  by  any  such  extremes  of  short- 
cuts,    (b)  And  the  theory  requires  also  a  fuller  recogni- 
tion of  other  ways  in  which  minds  may  fail  to  overlap  and, 
hence,  will  be  limited  in  knowledge  of  one  another.    The 
field  of  perception  supplies  an  illustration.     Those  of  us 
who  enjoy  the  full  possession  of  our  senses  find  it  easy  to 
say  what  a  blind  or  a  deaf  person  must  miss.    Our  common 
world  is  definitely  poorer  for  them  by  so  much  as  it  lacks  all 
colour  and  light  and  sound.    We  can  confidently  say  that, 


232  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

because  in  the  darkness  and  silence  of  the  night  we  have  a 
clue  to  what  the  world  of  the  blind-deaf  person  lacks  com- 
pared with  our  daylight  world  of  colour  and  sound.  But 
it  is  not  so  easy  for  us  to  realise,  how  varied  and  interest- 
ing the  world  may  be  to  a  blind-deaf  person,  who  has  learnt 
to  make  the  most  of  the  data  of  the  remaining  senses  which 
we  comparatively  neglect.  His  world,  in  short,  is  not  only 
poorer,  but  also  richer,  and  it  is  just  where  it  is  richer  that 
our  understanding  begins  to  fail.  Descriptions  such  as 
Helen  Keller  and  others  have  furnished,  do  not  wholly  fill 
the  gap.  Better  would  be  experiments  like  that  of  the  hero- 
ine of  The  Rosary.  How  far,  again,  can  we  share  the  world 
of  animals  which,  like  dogs,  live  by  differences  of  smells 
that  we  are  unable  to  perceive?  That  we  are  as  insensible 
to  most  of  the  odours  of  the  universe  as  we  are  to  the 
"  music  of  the  spheres  "  may  be  a  blessing  in  disguise,  but 
it  is  none  the  less  a  definite  limitation.  Perhaps,  as  F.  H. 
Bradley  suggests,  a  dog's  philosophy  would  run:  What 
smells  is  real,  what  does  not  smell  is  nothing.  But  even  the 
profoundest  human  philosopher  is  inevitably  an  outcast 
from  the  dog's  paradise  of  smells.1 

(3)  Lastly,  on  any  interpretation  of  the  behaviouristic 
view,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  behaviour  may  be  inten- 
tionally deceptive.  Language,  as  Talleyrand  remarked,  is 
intended  to  conceal  rather  than  reveal  thought.  But  the  lie 
in  words  is  not  so  potent  a  source  of  misunderstanding  as  the 
lie  in  deeds.  And  this,  in  turn,  suggests  sham,  make-believe, 
pretence,  with  all  their  ramifications.  Some  animals  lie  to 
their  pursuers  by  shamming  death.  In  human  intercourse 
the  problem  becomes  ethical,  not  only  in  the  crude  form,  Is  it 
ever  right  to  tell  a  lie?  but  in  the  subtler  forms  of  pretence 

1  It  is  worth  remarking  also  on  the  differences  in  the  means  of  ex- 
pression. Whatever  advantage  over  animals  language  gives  to  men, 
the  lack  of  a  tail  is  a  real  handicap  in  the  expression  of  emotions  by 
gesture. 


Ch.  VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  233 

and  make-believe  which  social  convention  exacts  as  part 
of  "  good  manners  ".  Our  ideals  of  tact,  etiquette,  polite- 
ness exact  a  certain  amount  of  make-believe  as  a  moral 
duty.  More  than  that,  the  self-control,  or  self-repression, 
necessary  in  the  building  of  a  moral  character,  involve  some- 
thing closely  akin  to  pretence  in  the  effort  not  to  betray 
certain  feelings,  not  to  express  certain  thoughts,  not  to 
indulge  certain  desires.  No  doubt,  it  is  one  thing  to  suffer 
from  certain  thoughts  and  desires;  another,  to  encourage 
and  entertain  them,  though  not  to  the  point  of  overt  action. 
It  is  one  thing  to  repress  a  feeling  in  order  to  deceive  others 
concerning  its  presence,  another,  in  order  to  be  rid  of  it  one- 
self. To  regulate  one's  behaviour  in  an  effort  at  self-puri- 
fication is  different  from  regulating  it  so  as  to  mislead  others 
into  thinking  one  is  better  than  one  is.  A  suppressio  mail 
in  conduct  need  not  be  a  suggestio  jalsi  to  others.  Still, 
the  suppression  of  the  visible  act  is  common  alike  to  the 
effort  to  emancipate  oneself,  and  to  the  effort  to  deceive. 
Hence  the  dividing  line  between  them  is  always  dangerously 
thin.  Too  frequently  the  moral  struggle  stops  with  the 
make-believe  in  outward  conduct  that  satisfies  the  social 
demand.  Hence  the  sins  of  thought,  the  vicarious  indul- 
gences in  imagination,  which  may  make  a  man's  life  a  lie  not 
only  to  others,  but  even  to  himself. 

The  privacy  view,  on  the  one  side,  the  "over-lapping- 
minds  "  view,  on  the  other,  seem  both  in  their  extreme 
forms  too  rigid  for  facts,  such  as  these,  to  be  comfortably 
fitted  in.  Indeed,  they  were  not  devised  with  a  view  to  facts 
such  as  these.  But  by  just  so  much  do  they  fail  to  save 
the  appearances  completely. 

We  have  fetched  a  wide  compass,  and  it  is  time  that  we 
gathered  in  our  results  and  applied  them  to  the  purpose 
in  hand,  to  the  saving  of  the  mind. 


234  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

Saving  the  mind,  we  have  found,  means  acknowledging 
the  existence  of  minds  as  genuine  phenomena  in  the  order 
of  the  universe.  But  such  acknowledgment  is  possible  only 
in  terms  of  a  theory  of  what  a  mind  is,  or  of  what  it  is  to 
be  a  mind.  We  have  sought  to  remove  the  difficulties  which 
are  alleged  as  standing  hi  the  way  of  such  a  theory,  on  the 
grounds  that  no  mind  can  fully  know  itself,  still  less  be 
known  by  any  other  mind.  In  trying  to  free  the  theory  of 
mind  from  these  embarrassments,  we  were  compelled  to 
notice  other  difficulties  arising  from  the  fact  that  theories  of 
what  a  mind  is  may  be  framed  in  very  different  contexts. 
The  biologist  and  animal  psychologist  needs  a  theory  of 
mind  which  will  allow  him  to  observe  minds  as  functions 
of  living  bodies  in  their  environment,  and  this  spectator 
point  of  view  is  applicable  also  to  human  minds.  Yet  when 
the  psychologist  takes  minds  at  the  human  level  proper, 
he  runs  up  against  two  facts  which  cannot  be  kept  from 
profoundly  modifying  the  purely  "  objective  "  or  spectator 
attitude.  One  of  these  facts  is  self-consciousness,  making 
possible  self-analysis  and  introspection.  The  other  is  the 
social  relations  of  men:  their  mental  life  in  social  form. 
The  psychologist's  own  mind  comes  into  the  picture  as  an 
object  of  study,  and  in  cooperation  and  conflict,  in  the 
fluctuating  relations  of  self  and  other  self,  the  thoroughly 
social  character  of  his  own  life  is  brought  home  to  him.  The 
former  fact,  taken  by  itself,  leads  to  an  extreme  individual- 
ism, if  not  solipsism — a  retirement  of  "  mind  "  or  "  con- 
sciousness "  upon  what  is  "  mine  ",  in  the  sense  of  imme- 
diate, unique,  unshareable  feeling.  The  other  fact  may  lead 
to  an  opposite  extreme  of  emphasising  what  is  actually  or 
potentially  common  to  many  minds.  The  problem  is,  some- 
how to  get  all  these  floating  bits  of  theory  into  some  coher- 
ent scheme — the  common  character  of  minds  as  such  and 
also  their  diversity  of  type;  their  conjunction  with  living 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  235 

bodies  and  their  function  in  the  economy  of  life;  their  uni- 
queness as  individuals;  their  sharing  of  a  common  world; 
their  social  relations  pregnant  with  consciousness  of  the  play 
of  self  versus  other  self.  All  these  have  their  place:  the 
trouble  is  to  find  that  place. 

This  is  the  situation  which  we  had  in  mind  when,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  essay,  we  threw  out  the  suggestion  that 
the  present-day  movement  in  psychology  pointed  towards  a 
synthesis  of  the  Aristotelian  and  Descartian,  the  biological 
and  introspective,  theories  of  mind — a  synthesis  which  must 
needs  be  both  polemical  and  constructive,  holding  fast  what 
is  of  value  in  each  of  these  two  points  of  view,  but  going 
definitely  beyond  either  where  the  saving  of  the  appearances 
makes  this  necessary.  It  remains  to  substantiate  this  sug- 
gestion. 

To  any  one  surveying  the  road  which  the  theory  of  the 
mind  has  travelled  since  the  days  of  Hume  and  Kant,  such  a 
suggestion  may  seem  unpromising.  Without  being  guilty 
of  mere  caricature,  he  might  recapitulate  the  history  of 
modern  theories  of  mind  somewhat  as  follows.  Hume  and 
Kant,  he  might  say,  found  in  the  field  a  "  metaphysical " 
theory  of  the  soul  as  an  immaterial,  spiritual  substance, 
indivisible,  self-identical,  immortal.1  For  this  sort  of  soul 
they  denied  all  empirical  evidence  or  warrant.  In  its  place 
Kant  put  the  "  empirical  ego ",  Hume  the  "  bundle  of 
ideas ",  rebaptised  by  James  and  other  empirical  psy- 
chologists the  "  stream  of  consciousness  ".  Thus  they  in- 
augurated the  era  of  the  "  psychology  without  a  soul ",  for 
which  there  is  no  soul  or  self  which  "has"  experiences; 
which  feels,  thinks,  wills.  The  experiences  themselves,  the 
feelings,  thoughts,  volitions,  as  they  come  and  go,  are  all  the 
soul  there  is.  And  when  it  comes  to  the  self,  James  is,  in 

1  Cf.  Descartes'  res  cogitans,  Berkeley's  "  spirit  which  is  active  in 
perceiving  ". 


236  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

certain  moods,  even  more  annihilating.  "  The  inner  nucleus 
of  the  spiritual  self "  the  "  self  of  selves  ",  so  James  de- 
clares, consists,  when  carefully  examined,  mainly  of  "pe- 
culiar motions  in  the  head,  or  between  the  head  and 
throat  ".  The  ordinary  man  may  glibly  say  "  I  think  ", 
but  introspection,  so  James  tells  him,  shows  nothing  but 
"  I  breathe  'V  At  the  same  time,  whilst  the  self  thus  seems 
to  shrink  into  the  bare  experience  of  certain  bodily  pro- 
cesses, the  stream  of  consciousness  threatens  to  make  up 
for  losing  a  soul  by  appropriating  the  whole  universe. 
"  What  is  the  subject  matter  of  psychology?  "  asks  Yerkes, 
and  replies:  "  It  is  consciousness,  or  the  world  of  objects 
and  events  viewed  as  consciousness  .  .  .  Upon  reflection 
we  discover  that  the  whole  world  may  be  viewed  either  as 
consciousness  or  as  objects  and  events  existing  apart  from 
consciousness  ".2  Here  at  last  the  ordinary  man  may  think 
(or  breathe)  is  something  substantial  to  lay  hold  of.  But 
just  as  he  stretches  out  his  hand,  the  prize  is  snatched  from 
his  grasp  by  the  behaviourists.  Whilst  most  psychologists 
assure  him  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  consciousness,  and 
that  by  introspection  he  can  perceive  that  it  is  there  and 
what  it  is  like,  the  strict  behaviourist  denies  both  conscious- 
ness and  introspection.  He  does  not  think  it  possible  to 
find  out  what  goes  on  inside  a  creature's  mind.  Hence  he 
proposes  to  study  the  creature's  behaviour  in  response  to 
definite  features  of  its  environment.  You  say  the  creature 
has  a  mind?  Well,  there  it  is,  patently  exhibited  before 
you  in  its  behaviour.  What  is  the  creature  conscious  of? 
What  does  it  perceive  or  think?  Look  what  it  does  and  to 
what  objects  in  the  environment  it  responds.  Its  conscious- 
ness is  the  cross-section  of  the  environment  composed  of 
the  things  to  which  the  creature's  central  nervous  system 

1  Essays  in   Radical  Empiricism,  p.  37;   Principles  of  Psychology, 
vol.  i,  pp.  299-305. 

2  Introduction  to  Psychology,  ch.  ii,  p.  13. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  237 

specifically  reacts.  Do  you  ask  for  a  self,  a  knower?  There 
is  the  body.  It  is  the  knower,  and  its  specific  response  is 
the  knowing.  Thus,  with  the  passing  of  the  spiritual  sub- 
stance, we  first  got  "  a  psychology  without  a  soul ",  and 
now  we  are  getting  a  psychology  even  without  consciousness. 
From  spiritual  substance  to  stream  of  consciousness,  from 
stream  of  consciousness  to  cross-section  of  the  universe  de- 
fined by  behaviour — such  are  the  vicissitudes  which  the 
mind  has  suffered  at  the  hands  of  its  students. 

But  if,  with  the  programme  of  a  synthesis  of  Aristotelian 
and  Descartian  theories  to  guide  us,  we  take  a  more  com- 
prehensive view,  this  whole  development  appears  in  a  some- 
what different  light.1  We  can  then  see  that  it  is  a  steady 
effort  to  work  back  from  empty  abstractions  to  a  more 
concrete  point  of  view.  It  is  surely  significant  that  E.  B. 
Holt  should  explicitly  present  his  behaviouristic  or  func- 
tional concept  of  consciousness  as  a  modern  statement  of 
Aristotle's  theory  of  the  soul.2 

For  Aristotle,  a  living  body,  an  organism,  is  "  besouled  " 
(eju^vjoff),  when  it  is  actively  exercising  its  proper  func- 
tion. What  actual  seeing  is  to  the  eye,  that  having  a  soul 
is  to  the  organism  as  a  whole.  The  soul  of  a  plant  consists 
in  that  it  lives  a  typical  plant-life  according  to  its  kind, 
carrying  on  the  cycle  of  activities  of  growth  and  generation 
in  the  manner  characteristic  of  that  sort  of  plant.  Similarly, 
the  soul  of  an  animal  consists  in  its  using  its  body  to  carry 
on  effectively  the  sort  of  activities  proper  to  that  kind  of 
animal.  In  this  sense  the  soul  is  the  "  actualisation  "  of 


1  Our  programme  has  obvious  affinities  with  the  three  stages  in  the 
growth  of  psychology,  according  as  the  fundamental  concept  is  life, 
mind,  or  experience,  which  Professor  James  Ward  distinguishes  in  his 
recently  published  Psychological  Principles.     There  are  some  differ- 
ences between  the  view  set  forth  in  Ward's  first  chapter  and  the  view 
of  this  essay,  but  they  are  probably  differences  of  language  rather  than 
of  doctrine. 

2  The  Freudian  Wish,  pp.  49  and  95  ff. 


238  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS      [Ch.VIII 

the  body's  "  potentiality  ".  It  is  like  the  difference  between 
a  machine  at  work,  performing  the  function  for  which  it 
was  built,  and  the  same  machine  standing  still,  except  that 
a  machine,  unlike  a  living  body,  neither  builds  itself  (i£., 
grows)  nor  performs  its  functions  of  its  own  initiative.  So 
a  human  soul  consists  in  a  human  body  actually  doing  all 
the  things  which  make  a  normal  human  life,  from  the  nutri- 
tive and  generative  activities  which  it  shares  with  plant 
souls,  through  sensation,  appetition,  locomotion,  which  it 
shares  with  animal  souls,  to  the  characteristically  "  ra- 
tional "  activities  which  are  specifically  human.1  A  soul, 
then,  for  Aristotle,  is  the  "  form  "  or  "  entelechy  "  of  a 
body,  i.e.,  the  actual  functioning  of  a  body  according,  as 
we  might  say,  to  its  immanent  design;  and  obviously  a 
functioning  body  implies  a  setting  or  environment  to  which 
its  functioning  is  related.  Thus  out  of  the  fundamental  con- 
cepts of  a  living  body  as  a  system  of  organs;  the  functions 
or  uses  of  these  organs  as  subsidiary  to  the  function  of  the 
system  as  a  whole;  and  the  actual  functioning  (evtpyeia) 
of  the  whole  in  its  setting,  Aristotle  builds  a  theory  of  the 
soul  according  to  its  three  kinds,  plant-soul,  animal-soul, 
man-soul.  Dropping  all  technical  terminology,  we  might 
simply  say  that,  for  Aristotle,  to  be,  or  have,  a  human  soul 
is  to  do  whatever  things  a  human  body  can  do,  and  prefer- 
ably to  do  them  well,  i.e.,  with  that  excellence  which  comes 
from  grasp  of  principle  grounded  in  sound  habituation. 

His  standpoint  is,  of  course,  "  objective  ".  His  "  ener- 
geia "  is  "  behaviour ",  especially  when  behaviour  is  ex- 
tended to  cover,  as  it  ought  to  cover,  "  working  or  playing, 
reading,  writing,  or  talking,  making  money  or  spending  it, 
constructing  or  destroying,  curing  disease,  alleviating  pov- 
erty, comforting  the  oppressed,  and  promoting  one  or  an- 

1  That  Aristotle,  unable  to  find  an  organ  for  the  intellect  (wvc), 
should  have  got  into  a  difficulty  at  this  point  in  carrying  through  his 
view  does  not  affect  the  argument 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  239 

other  sort  of  orderliness."  *  This  is,  of  course,  the  reason 
why  Aristotle  has  no  difficulty  in  using  his  theory  of  the 
soul  as  a  basis  for  theories  of  perception,  of  moral  train- 
ing, of  citizenship.  It  is  a  theory  drawn  to  the  proportions 
of  the  actual,  as  well  as  of  the  "  good  ",  life  for  human 
beings,  concretely  taken  in  a  concrete  world.  But  compared 
with  traditional  modern  psychology,  other  than  behaviour- 
ism of  the  Holtian  kind,  Aristotle's  theory  strikes  us  as  al- 
most alien  for  two  reasons.  One  is  that  it  is  wholly  free 
from  the  obsession  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  body 
to  soul,  conceived  as  two  disparate  "  substances  ".  The 
other  is  that  it  lacks  the  individualistic  note  of  introspection, 
and  has  no  term  equivalent  to  "  consciousness  ". 

Consciousness  and  the  body-soul  dualism  owe  their  cen- 
tral position  in  so  much  of  modern  thought  chiefly  to  Des- 
cartes. This  is  not  to  deny  that  Descartes,  in  his  concept 
of  mind  as  a  res  cogitans,  substantially  distinct  from  body 
as  a  res  extensa,  was  the  heir  of  centuries  of  scholastic 
thought.  But  it  would  be  irrelevant  here  to  trace  how, 
through  the  influence  of  Christianity,  carrying  on  and  gath- 
ering up  kindred  tendencies  in  Greek  and  Eastern  thought, 
the  dualism  of  "  flesh  "  and  "  spirit "  was  developed  into  a 
metaphysics  of  two  substances,  or  how  the  religious  in- 
dividual's preoccupation  with  the  state  of  his  soul,  in  res- 
pect of  sin  and  salvation,  gave  rise  to  that  inwardness  and 
self-analysis  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  attitude  of 
introspection.2  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  when  Descartes  laid 
down  his  famous  cogtto  ergo  sum;  defined  the  soul  as  the 
substance  which  is  conscious;  and  which,  moreover,  is  con- 
scious, in  the  first  instance,  only  of  itself  and  its  "  ideas  " 
but  not  of  any  real  thing,  be  it  its  own  body  or  God,  he 
definitely  established  the  "  subjective  "  point  of  view,  and 

1  E.  B.  Holt^  loc.  cit.,  p.  58  (slightly  abbreviated  in  quotation). 

2  St.  Augustine's  influence  on  this  development  is  especially  marked. 


240  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

fixed  that  gulf  between  a  mind  and  its  body,  as  well  as 
between  a  mind  and  the  real  world  "  outside  ",  which  it 
has  taken  centuries  of  philosophical  argument  to  break 
down  again.  Indeed,  what  Descartes  did  was  even  more 
fundamental  than  this.  For  actually,  his  appeal  to  cogitatio 
or  consciousness,  was  an  appeal  to  selj -consciousness,  but, 
owing  to  the  exclusion,  not  only  of  the  body  and  the  corpor- 
eal world  generally,  but  also  of  the  social  world  of  other 
selves,  it  was  an  empty  and  abstract  self-consciousness  to 
which  he  appealed — a  self-consciousness  reduced  to  bare 
immediacy.  Descartes'  method  of  doubt,  together  with  his 
desperate  shifts  for  justifying  the  belief  in  the  existence  of 
"  real  "  things  corresponding  to  the  "  ideas  "  in  our  minds, 
shows  that  it  is  really  he  to  whom  modern  philosophy  owes 
the  recognition  of  immediate  experience,  or  data,  and  the 
problem  of  "  transcendence  ".*  The  self,  or  ego,  existence 
of  which  is  assured  by  the  cogito  ergo  sum,  is  not  the  con- 
crete self,  conscious  of  itself  as  a  member  of  a  physical  and 
social  world,  but  a  mere  synonym  for  immediate  experience, 
for  this  present  feeling,  this  present  thought,  etc.  So  far 
those  critics  are  right  who  urge  that  Descartes  was  entitled 
to  say,  not  cogito,  but  only  cogitatur.  The  personal  pro- 
noun here  covers  the  ambiguity  pointed  out  above.2 

This  is  not  to  deny  the  value  of  Descartes'  influence  on 
philosophy  in  that  he  emancipated  natural  science  from  the 
animism  with  which  in  scholastic  speculation  it  was  still  in- 
fected. But  in  treating  living  bodies,  even  the  human  body, 
physically  regarded  as  mere  machines,  he  set  the  fashion  of 
reducing  biology  to  physics;  he  bequeathed  to  psychology 

1  Hume  deepened  both  the  recognition  and  the  problem  in  the  ultra- 
empirical  setting  of  his  own  analysis.    It  is  characteristic  that  modern 
thinkers  occupied  with  the  same  problem,  like  Bertrand  Russell,  have 
affinities  with  both  Hume  and  Descartes.     The  deeper  affiliations  cut 
across  the  current  superficial  classifications  into  Empiricist  and  Ration- 
alist. 

2  See  pp.  223,  4. 


Cb.  VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  241 

and  philosophy  the  body-soul  problem;  he  burdened  theory 
of  knowledge  with  the  dualism  of  intra-mental  ideas  and 
extra-mental  things;  he  divorced  and  isolated  each  individ- 
ual mind  alike  from  other  minds  and  from  the  common 
world;  he  destroyed  for  psychology  all  chance  of  a  concrete 
analysis  of  human  minds  by  dividing  the  living  man  not 
only  between  a  soulless  body  and  a  bodyless  soul,  but  by 
dividing  the  soul  further  between  a  metaphysical,  non-em- 
pirical "  substance ",  and  an  abstract  self-consciousness 
whittled  down  to  the  bare  data  of  immediate  experience. 
As  far  as  any  single  thinker  can  be  called  so,  he  is  the 
father  of  all  evil  in  modern  philosophy. 

Fortunately,  these  errors  acted  as  challenges  and  stimuli 
to  thought  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  most  of  the  con- 
structive philosophy  and  psychology  of  modern  times.  On 
its  logical  or  epistemological  side,  Descartes'  concept  of 
consciousness,  through  the  problem  of  transcendence,  led, 
via  Hume,  to  Kant's  re-discovery  of  judgment  (instead  of 
idea)  as  the  clue  to  the  analysis  of  knowledge.  On  its  psy- 
chological side,  his  concept  of  consciousness  made  possible 
the  contributions  of  introspective  psychology,  though  these 
were  loaded,  from  the  pressure  of  their  initial  setting,  with 
three  defects:  (a)  a  tendency  to  sensationalistic  association- 
ism;  (b)  a  complete  ignoring  of  the  motor  or  behaviour 
aspect  of  mind;  (c)  a  leaning  towards  either  epiphenome- 
nalism  or  parallelism  as  the  relation  of  soul  to  body,  with 
the  result  that  consciousness,  whether  as  thought  or  will, 
ceases  to  be  an  effective  factor  in  conduct  or  evolution. 

The  inevitable  reaction  to  these  fictions  is  represented, 
partly  by  McDougall's  return  to  an  animistic  (i.e.,  spiritual 
substance)  theory  of  mind  and  an  interactionist  theory  of 
the  relation  of  mind  and  body,  partly  by  Bergson's  theory 
of  the  elan  vital  and  his  peculiar  theory  of  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body  in  Matter  and  Memory. 


242  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

But  the  real  saving  of  mind  requires  neither  an  anima  nor 
an  elan  vital.  What  it  does  require  is  that  we  should  undo 
Descartes'  abstractions  without  surrendering  that  advance 
in  inwardness  and  self-analysis,  which  has  come  to  character- 
ise modern  men  in  direct  proportion  to  the  increasing  com- 
plexity of  modern  life,  with  its  increasing  stress  and  conflict 
of  spiritual  values.  Descartes'  cogito,  so  far  as  it  does  stand 
for  a  human  being's  consciousness  of  himself,  is  but  the 
highly  attenuated  reflection  in  theory  of  the  characteristi- 
cally modern  feeling  for  personality,  i.e.,  of  the  individual's 
sense  of  his  own  value;  of  his  uniqueness;  of  his  "  rights  ", 
not  only  as  a  human  being  but  as  the  person  he  is;  of  his 
moral  autonomy  as  a  rational  being;  of  a  world  open  to  his 
self-expression,  in  science,  in  art,  in  industry.  But  a  human 
mind,  thus  conceived,  can  neither  be  divorced  from  the  body 
in  which  it  is  very  literally  "  embodied  ",  and  through  which 
alone  it  is  actual  and  effective,  nor  from  the  natural  or  social 
environment  from  which  it  draws  its  "  contents  "  and  which, 
by  its  responses,  it  modifies  and  helps  to  make  or  mar.  The 
modern  Aristotelianism  of  the  behaviourists  carries  us  a 
long  way  in  this  desired  direction,  and  so  does  the  concept 
of  consciousness  as,  in  respect  of  its  contents,  a  "  cross- 
section  of  the  universe  ".  But  to  the  element  of  truth  in  the 
emphasis  on  inwardness  and  subjectivity  this  "  objective  " 
view  hardly  does  full  justice.  What  seems  required  is  a 
concept  of  mind,  not  so  much  merely  as  a  "  cross-section  " 
of  the  universe,  but  as  a  focus,  or  centre,  of  experiences  of 
the  universe — a  "subject"  (in  Hegel's  sense  of  the  term), 
not  a  substance;  a  new  power,  one  might  almost  say,  evolved 
in  the  world,  endowed  with  the  function  of  bringing  past  ex- 
perience to  bear  on  the  interpretation  of  present  data,  of 
planning  and  guiding  action  in  proportion  to  knowledge,  of 
controlling  desire  and  seeking  new  truth,  of  enjoying  beauty, 
of  loving  and  hating,  of  serving  and  fighting,  of  cooperating 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  243 

with  its  fellows  and  of  persecuting  them,  of  ascending,  in 
short,  to  all  the  heights  and  falling  to  all  the  depths  which 
men  and  women  know  to  lie  within  the  compass  of  human 
nature. 

The  crucial  facts  which  our  modern  Aristotelians  do  not 
yet  cover  with  such  meanings  as  they  have  been  able  to 
give  to  their  terms   "  behaviour "  and  "  cross-section  of 
the  universe  ",  are  precisely  those  for  which,  on  the  whole 
Aristotle's  vovs  stands.    No  doubt,  the  principle  holds  that 
the  central  nervous  system  provides  for  all  the  achievements 
of   vovs,  but  this  is  not  equivalent  to  a  behaviouristic 
analysis  of,  say,  the  logical  operations  which  result  in  the 
formulation  of  a  scientific  theory — say  of  behaviourism  it- 
self— or  the  creative  thinking  of  an  artist,  or  constructive 
statesmanship,    or    great    administrative    and    organising 
achievements  in  business.    No  doubt  the  body  is  concerned 
and  the  environment  to  which  the  body,  or  rather  the  nerv- 
ous system,  selectively  responds;  no  doubt,  too,  past  re- 
sponses have  their  influence.    But  with  all  this,  we  are  still 
far  from  having  rendered  in  "  objective  "  terminology  the 
secret  of  inventiveness,  creativeness,  and  all  manner  of  con- 
structive thinking  and  doing.    It  seems  as  if,  in  the  main, 
this  could  only  be  done,  as  many  philosophers  have  tried, 
and  are  trying,  to  do  it,  by  direct  analysis  of  these  activities 
and  achievements  in  their  logical  character.     In  fact,  do 
not  all  considerations  point  towards  the  need  of  acknowledg- 
ing minds  or  souls  as  unique  concentrations  of  elements 
of  the  universe,  infinitely  diverse  in  range  and  variety  of 
elements  concentrated,  and  fluctuating  in  power  of  dealing 
with  them,  but,  at  their  best,  able  to  elicit  from  the  materials 
focused  perhaps  a  new  scientific  theory,  perhaps  a  plan  for 
an  adventure,  a  business  enterprise,  a  social  reform,  per- 
haps a  new  thrill  of  beauty  to  be  enjoyed  and  communicated 
through  a  work  of  art? 


244  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

The  "  saving  of  the  mind  "  means,  at  its  fullest,  the  saving 
of  appearances  such  as  these.  The  extent  to  which  these 
familiar  facts  are  ignored  by  much  current  theory  is  the 
measure  of  its  failure  to  be  equal  to  its  opportunities. 


Note  on  the  Theory  of  Knowledge 
(See  p.  206) 

The  name  of  epistemology  has  not  unjustly  become  a  by-word 
for  all  that  is  least  reputable  in  philosophy,  for  all  the  arid 
dialectics  and  idle  hair-splitting  over  fictitious  problems  which 
are,  proverbially,  the  philosopher's  besetting  temptation.  Even 
after  we  have  successfully  disentangled  ourselves  from  the  old 
dualism  of  ideas  and  objects,  intra-mental  thoughts  and  extra- 
mental  things,  we  are  still  confronted  by  a  perplexing  variety  of 
analyses  of  the  "  knowing-process "  or  the  "  knowledge-situa- 
tion ".  But  what  is  not  always  clearly  seen  is  that  this  variety 
of  analyses,  with  all  the  impatient  argument  at  cross-purposes  to 
which  it  gives  rise,  is  here,  as  always,  a  symptom  of  logical  in- 
stability of  concepts,  of  the  criss-crossing  of  inconsistent  points  of 
view.  In  fact,  problems  may  be  put  under  the  same  heading 
of  "  knowledge ",  and  yet  be  discussed  from  widely  different 
points  of  view,  i.e.,  in  contexts,  and  on  the  basis  of  assumptions, 
utterly  disparate. 

We  shall  do  something  towards  threading  our  way  through  the 
maze,  if  we  distinguish  at  least  two  angles  from  which,  in  recent 
philosophical  literature,  the  problem  of  knowledge  has  been  form- 
ulated and  discussed. 

(i)  We  may  start  out  by  saying  that  knowing  is  a  specific 
activity  of  certain  kinds  of  animals  (including  the  human  ani- 
mal), and  that,  like  other  activities,  such  as  eating  or  walking 
or  talking,  it  must  be  observed  and  studied  by  taking  typical 
cases  of  it.  This  way  of  approach  is  often  called  "  empirical " 
and  "  scientific  ".  It  certainly  takes  for  granted  the  point  of  view 
of  biology.  It  places  knowing  in  a  biological  context,  interprets 
it  as  one  phase  of  the  living  creature's  commerce  with  its  environ- 
ment. The  "  cognitive  relation  "  is  similarly  interpreted.  The 
creature,  through  its  mind,  is  the  knower;  the  environment,  with 
more  or  less  selection,  is  the  object,  or  known. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  245 

Alternatively,  with  less  explicit  emphasis  on  the  biological  set- 
ting, but  still  fundamentally  with  the  same  orientation,  we  may 
ask  what  a  given  mind  knows,  where  "  knowing "  means 
simply  "  being  aware  of  ",  in  the  widest  sense.  It  means  asking, 
What  is  in  X's  mind?  What  is  X  perceiving,  thinking,  imagining? 
To  say  that  this  question  is  largely  answerable  by  observation, 
by  watching  the  "  responses  "  of  the  "  knower  "  to  his  environ- 
ment, is,  granting  the  biological  setting,  plausible  enough.  And 
if,  in  addition  to  observing  the  knower,  the  observer  understands 
the  knower 's  language,  the  limits  of  the  observer's  own  mind 
are  the  only  limits  to  his  finding  out  what  the  other  knows.  In 
short,  if  by  something  being  known  we  mean  merely  its  being 
"  in  ",  or  "  present  to  "  somebody's  mind — very  literally  some 
body's  mind,  for  the  "  body  "  is  the  "  subject "  on  this  view 1 — 
the  problem  of  knowledge  admits,  in  this  form,  of  a  solution  in 
terms  of  the  knower 's  behaviour  (including  his  language)  towards 
his  environment.  His  mind,  his  consciousness,  his  knowledge 
will  be  a  "  cross-section "  of  the  universe,  consisting  of  those 
elements  of  the  universe  to  which  the  knower 's  nervous  system 
specifically  responds.  Throughout  this  way  of  putting,  and  solv- 
ing, the  problem  of  knowledge,  nothing  more  is,  clearly,  in  ques- 
tion than  a  stock-taking,  so  to  speak,  of  the  contents  of  a  know- 
er's  mind,  considered  as  a  selection  from  the  contents  of  the 
universe  at  large.  With  the  virtues  of  such  a  view,  as  providing 
a  delightfully  "realistic"  escape  from  the  toils  of  "subjective 
idealism  ",  we  are  not  here  concerned.  All  that  interests  us  is 
to  distinguish  this  type  of  theory  of  knowledge  from  another 
one  which  is  quite  differently  oriented. 

To  this  second  theory  we  are  led,  not  by  seeking  to  distinguish 
what,  out  of  the  total  universe,  is  and  what  is  not  object  for  a 
given  mind,  but  by  seeking  to  distinguish  between  "  opinion  " 
and  "knowledge",  or,  better  still,  between  truth  and  error. 
The  problem  here  is  not  one  of  stock-taking;  of  noting,  or  infer- 
ring, a  given  person's  awareness  of  this,  or  failure  to  be  aware 
of  that.  It  is  a  problem  of  evaluation:  is  what  he2  is  aware  of 
"  really  "  or  "  truly  "  so?  Is  it  what  he  believes  it  to  be?  Even 
this  way  of  putting  it  is  still  misleading,  at  any  rate  for  any 

1  E.  B.  Holt,  Response  and  Cognition,  in  The  Freudian  Wish,  p.  174. 
See  also  above,  pp.  237,  8. 

2  The  "  he  ",  of  course,  of  this  question  may  be  "  I  ".    Do  I  knowf= 
Is  it  really  so,  where  "  so  "=as  I  perceive  and  judge  it  to  be. 


246  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.VIII 

one  who  should  throughout  keep  the  emphasis  on  "  he  ",  on  some 
"  particular  "  mind.  For  the  real  point  of  this  second  kind  of 
theory  of  knowledge  is,  not  to  find  a  general  formula  denning 
the  conditions  under  which  independent  reals  become  objects  of 
somebody's  apprehension  or  contents  of  some  mind,  but  to  dis- 
cuss the  character  (or  "  what ")  of  the  real  world  from  the  angle 
of  the  question,  whether  it  truly  is  what  it  is  judged,  or  believed, 
or  assumed,  to  be.  Our  topic  of  investigation  is  not  what  is 
de  facto  "  in  ",  or  "  before  ",  a  given  mind.  Our  topic  is  judg- 
ments, theories,  beliefs,  and  the  grounds  on  which  their  claim 
to  be  true,  and  to  constitute  "  knowledge  "  because  they  are  true, 
may  be  justified.  We  are  to  deal,  not  with  "  ideas  ",  as  distinct 
from  "  real  things  ",  but  with  real  things  as  they  are  perceived 
and  conceived  to  be.  A  theory  of  knowledge  of  this  sort  will  find 
its  "  typical  cases  "  of  knowledge  in  any  systematic  body  of  judg- 
ments such  as  the  natural  sciences,  and  it  will  be  entirely  indif- 
ferent to  the  question  whether  a  particular  scientist  happens,  at 
the  moment,  to  be  noticing  a  particular  fact,  or  to  be  thinking 
of  a  particular  theory.  It  will  examine  the  logical  structure  of 
the  sciences,  point  out  their  dominant  concepts,  evaluate  their 
success  as  attempts  at  the  systematisation  and  interpretation  of 
empirical  data,  estimate  their  degree  of  abstractness,  and  so  forth. 
With  individual  minds,  as  properties  or  activities  of  animals  or 
human  beings,  taken  biologically  in  their  environment,  it  is  not 
concerned.  Rather  is  it  concerned  with  the  nature  of  the  uni- 
verse or  of  "  reality  "/  approached  from  the  only  possible  angle 
of  the  logical  adequacy,  or  truth,  of  the  judgments  or  beliefs 
which  in  systematic  form  sum  up  what  the  data,  synthetically 
used,  reveal  of  its  constitution  and  character.  It  is  concerned 
with  knowledge,  not  with  knowers,  with  science,  not  with  scien- 
tists. And  when  it  says  "  knowledge  ",  or  "  science  "  it  means 
the  world  as  known,  i.e.,  the  world  as  it  is  judged  to  be  in  judg- 
ments which,  like  scientific  theories,  have  within  certain  fields 
made  good  their  claim  to  be  true.  Of  course,  we  can,  if  we 
please,  be  interested  in  scientific  theories,  or  discoveries,  as  inci- 
dents in  the  personal  history  of  great  scientists,  just  as  we  rightly 
honour  such  men  for  having  "  added  to  knowledge  ".  But  to 
the  main  problem  of  theory  of  knowledge  this  is  irrelevant.  What 
matters  is  not  the  fact  that  somebody  accepts  a  theory  but  \ 

1  See  the  argument  of  Essay  IV. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  247 

whether  that  theory  is  true.  And,  again,  it  is  not  the  details  of 
theory  which  matter,  but  the  fundamental,  or,  in  our  language, 
"  dominant "  concepts.  Theory  of  knowledge,  somewhat  like 
Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  but  without  the  latter's  entangle- 
ment with  "  consciousness-as-such ",  asks  whether  the  general 
character  and  logical  framework  of  the  world  are  what  scientific, 
moral,  religious  judgments  declare  it  to  be.  This  situation  is 
obscured  by  the  necessity  which  none  of  us  can  escape  of  rely- 
ing on  some  one  else's  authority  in  matters  in  which  we  cannot 
get  knowledge  at  first  hand.  Then  the  fact  that  so-and-so,  be- 
lieved to  be  an  authority,  thinks  so,  is  important  as  evidence 
for  its  being  so.  But  the  authority  may  err,  not  only  in  detail — 
other  workers  in  the  same  field  will  sooner  or  later  correct  his 
mistakes — but  by  extending  the  fundamental  concepts  of  his  field 
of  knowledge  beyond  the  boundaries  within  which  they  are  valid. 
And  then  arises  precisely  that  problem  of  the  systematic  order 
of  the  universe  as  a  whole *  which  has  to  be  faced,  whether  we 
call  the  attempt  to  solve  it  "  theory  of  knowledge  "  or  "  meta- 
physics ". 

Let  us  push  this  contrast  a  little  further.  The  verb  "  to 
know  "  is  ambiguous,  in  that  its  uses  range  from  the  mere  affir- 
mation of  awareness  to  the  emphatic  affirmation  of  truth.  When 
I  say,  in  common  intercourse,  that  I  "  know  "  a  thing,  I  may 
mean  no  more  than  that  I  am  aware  of  it,  in  the  sense  that  I 
have  witnessed  it,  read  it,  been  told  it,  etc.  Or  it  may  mean  that 
emphatically  the  thing  is  so,  that  my  judgment  or  belief  that  it 
is  so  is  true,  not  because  it  is  "  mine  ",  but  because  there  is  good 
evidence  to  show  that  it  is  so  and  not  otherwise.  Of  course,  I 
can  appeal  to  these  grounds  only  so  far  as  I  am  aware  of  them. 
Still  my  claim  that  I  "  know  ",  i.e.,  that  what  I  think  is  true, 

1  Is  it  still  necessary,  at  this  time  of  day,  to  remind  critics  of  the 
phrases  "  as  a  whole "  or  "  point  of  view  of  the  whole ",  that  they 
miss  the  point  if  they  keep  interpreting  these  phrases  in  terms  of  their 
own  contrast  between  the  illimitable  universe  and  the  narrow  human 
mind?  Every  educated  man,  including  the  critics,  thinks  of  the  uni- 
verse partly  in  terms  of  the  fundamental  concepts  of  the  various  natu- 
ral sciences,  partly  in  terms  of  moral,  religious,  Aesthetic  concepts. 
Every  judgment  he  accepts  as  true  introduces,  or  implies,  some  one 
or  more  of  these  concepts,  and  claims  that  reality,  in  one  of  its  aspects 
at  any  rate,  is  so.  Here,  surely  are  enough  materials  out  of  which 
to  try  to  form  a  "  whole  ".  How?  is  no  doubt  a  matter  of  experiment. 
But  those  who  have  never  tried  have  no  right  to  say  "  it  can't  be 
done  " :  and  those  who  have  tried  and  failed,  should  not  stand  in  the 
way  of  those  who  want  to  try  again. 


248  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS       [Ch.  VIII 

rests  not  on  the  mere  fact  that  I  happen  to  be  aware  of  both 
grounds  and  conclusion,  but  on  the  fact  that  the  grounds  logically 
support  the  conclusion,  that  there  is  an  "  objective "  relation 
between  them  which  would  be  equally  authoritative  for  any 
other  thinker.  This  is  the  factor  of  "  objective  control  "  so  much 
emphasised  by  many  writers  on  logic  and  theory  of  knowledge. 
Obviously  to  the  study  of  it  the  fact  that  it  appears  in  individual 
minds  is  irrelevant,  though  such  appearance  is  the  sine  qua  non 
of  its  being  accessible  to  study  at  all.1 

Another  way  of  putting  the  contrast  between  the  two  types  of 
theory  of  knowledge  is  to  say  that  the  concept  of  the  "  cognitive 
relation  ",  as  a  relation  between  knowing  mind  and  object  known, 
belongs  essentially  to  the  former  type,  and  not  to  the  latter  at  all. 
So  far  as  the  second  type  of  theory  can  be  said  to  have  any  con- 
cern at  all  with  any  sort  of  relation  which  might  be  called  "  cogni- 
tive ",  such  concern  would  be  either  with  the  relation,  if  any, 
between  datum"  or  "fact",  and  "judgment"  or  "theory"; 
or  else,  after  the  manner  of  F.  H.  Bradley,  with  the  adequacy 
of  "  discursive  thought ",  i.e.,  of  all  relational  concepts  whatso- 
ever. 

At  any  rate,  the  present  chaos  in  epistemology  will  not  disap- 
pear, until  it  is  clearly  recognised  that  some  such  sorting  out  of 
problems,  as  we  have  above  suggested,  is  absolutely  necessary.2 
We  can  take  human  beings  as  known  to  psychology  and  physi- 
ology, bring  them  as  an  animal  species  within  the  field  known 
to  zoology  and  biology,  place  them  in  an  environment  as  known 

1  The  fact  that  the  meaning  of  "  knowledge"  ranges  from  awareness 
at  one  end,  which  if  we  like  to  say  so,  is  "subjective",  to  truth  or 
fact,  at  the  other,  which  are  "objective",  has  many  curious  conse.- 
quences.     It  accounts,  for  example,  for  the  oft-felt  difficulty  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  truthfulness  and  truth.    "  Many  people  cannot  see 
the  difference  between  impeaching  their  argument  and  impeaching  their 
veracity"   (Bosanquet,  Essentials  of  Logic,  p.  25).    Again,  in  debate, 
it  is  not  easy  to  attack  a  theory  without  seeming  to  attack  those  who 
hold  it.     However  objective  and  impersonal  the  criticism  may  be  in 
tone,  there  is  but  a  thin  line  between  the  imputation  of  error  and 
the  imputation  of  stupidity,  or  of  bias  amounting  to  intellectual  dis- 
honesty.    At  best,   though   the   dispute   be   all   about   objective   truth 
between  two  lovers  of  it,  it  is  a  measuring  of  minds  and  personalities 
against  each  other ;  and  "  personalities "  are  apt  to  result  where  the 
fate  of  reputations  trembles  in  the  balance — a  good  example,  we  must 
suppose,  of  what  Hegel  calls  "die  List  der  Vernunft". 

2  An  essay  in  the  second  volume  of  Studies  will  give  a  fuller  exposi- 
tion and  defence  of  the  above  view,  especially  in  its  historical  con- 
text. 


Ch.VIII]  THEORIES  OF  MIND  249 

to  physics,  chemistry  and  the  rest  of  the  natural  sciences.  Be- 
tween a  human  being  thus  known  and  an  environment  thus  known 
we  can,  then,  to  our  hearts'  content  construct  a  "  cognitive  re- 
lation ",  in  terms  of  which  we,  onlooker-wise,  can  say  just  what 
of  the  environment  our  human  knower  perceives,  remembers,  etc. 
It  is  a  harmless  amusement,  and  even  an  addition  to  knowledge. 
But  what  it  is  not  is  a  theory  of  knowledge  in  the  sense  in 
which  such  a  theory  should  seek  to  answer  the  question,  how 
far  all  this  apparatus  of  sciences  which  provides  the  setting  for 
the  cognitive  relation  can  claim  to  be  knowledge,  i.e.,  what  • 
grounds  there  are  for  thinking  that  the  universe  is  really,  or] 
truly,  such  as  the  sciences,  between  them,  declare  it  to  be,  and 
what  is  to  be  done  with  the  evidence  of  all  the  modes  of  expe- 
rience which  the  sciences  ignore — with  all  the  bricks  which  the 
scientific  builders  reject  as  not  fitting  into  their  pattern. 

It  is  only  fair  to  acknowledge  that  the  doctrines  of  the  various 
neo-realistic  schools  of  thought,  however  much  they  may  differ 
from  each  other  or  from  the  position  maintained  above,  may 
certainly  claim  one  great  and  undeniable  merit,  viz.,  that  in 
their  polemics  against  epistemology  and  "  idealism "  (or  what 
they  take  to  be  idealism),  and  in  their  efforts  to  disentangle  ob- 
jective reality  from  the  "  accident "  of  being  known  by  someone, 
they  are  at  least  clearing  the  way  for  themselves  to  a  Gegenstands- 
theorie  which  bears  unmistakably  all  the  marks  of  a  return  to 
metaphysics.1  Are  we  venturing  on  an  unsafe  prophecy  when  we 
say  that  their  metaphysical  interests  will  compel  them,  sooner 
or  later,  to  take  up  the  considerations  which  yield  theory  of 
knowledge  in  our  second  sense? 

1  The  most  recent  example  is  E.  G.  Spaulding's  The  New  Rational- 
ism which  has  come  to  my  notice  too  late  for  detailed  reference  in  the 
course  of  these  essays. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

THROUGHOUT  the  preceding  essay,  it  will  have  been  noticed 
how  often  problems  of  "  mind  "  touched  so  closely  on  prob- 
lems of  "  self "  as  to  be  almost  inseparable.  It  will  help 
us  to  open  up  our  present  topic,  if  we  recapitulate  these  con- 
tacts. 

The  most  obvious  of  them  is  incidental  to  the  familiar 
•view  that  each  mind  is  certainly  conscious  of  itself,  whether 
or  no  it  be  conscious  of  anything  beyond  itself.  The  up- 
holders of  this  view  might  even,  if  it  were  put  to  them,  be 
found  willing  to  make  this  the  defining  characteristic  of  a 
mind.  Self-knowledge,  in  the  sense  of  self-awareness,  they 
might  say,  is  the  essential  prerogative  of  a  mind:  only  a 
mind  has  this  unique  relation  to  itself. 

But  the  exact  meaning  of  this  view  is  far  from  obvious, 
however  plausible  the  language  may  sound.  It  appears  to 
'identify  being  a  mind  with  being  a  self,  being  conscious 
with  being  self-conscious.  This  identification,  however,  may 
well  make  us  pause.  We  shall  hardly  accept  it  in  the  sense 
that  to  be  conscious  is  the  same  as  to  be  conscious  of  being 
conscious;  i.e.,  it  is  not  "consciousness",  as  an  abstract 
quale,  of  which  it  can  be  intended  to  say  that  it  is  aware 
of  itself  and  of  nothing  else.  But  if  we  turn  from  conscious- 
ness in  the  abstract  to  the  objects  of  which  we  are  conscious, 
the  suggestion  that  whatever  any  mind  is  conscious  of  is 
a  piece,  so  to  speak,  of  itself,  comes  to  all  our  ordinary 
habits  of  thinking  with  the  effect  of  violent  paradox.  This 
paradox  is  but  intensified  when  it  is  defended,  along  the 

250 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  251 

traditional  lines,  by  turning  every  object  into  a  complex  of 
"  mental "  sensations  or  ideas.  For  this  defence  cuts  clear 
across  all  the  ordinary  classifications  of  the  objects  we  are 
conscious  of,  as  "  minds  "  and  "  bodies  ",  or  "  particulars  " 
and  "  universals  ",  and  so  forth.  It  cuts  across — indeed,  it 
threatens  to  make  meaningless — even  the  familiar  distinc- 
tion between  me  and  you,  what  is  my  self  and  what  is  your 
self.  If  it  is  of  the  essence  of  a  mind  to  be  aware  of  itself, 
and  of  nothing  but  itself,  the  whole  status  of  the  "  other  " 
becomes  exceedingly  problematical.  Not  only  what  is  other 
than  mind  (non-mental),  i.e.,  the  physical  world,  is  affected, 
but,  even  more  sweepingly,  what  is  other  than  this  mind, 
i.e.,  other  minds,  other  selves.  This  situation  led  us  to 
recognise  as  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  trouble  in  the  theory 
of  mind,  consciousness,  self,  the  fact  that  these  terms,  and 
especially  the  pronouns  of  the  first  person  singular,  are  used, 
at  one  end  of  the  pole,  as  pure  demonstratives  referring  to 
immediate  experience  or  feeling,  and,  at  the  other  end,  in 
a  social  context  in  which  each  mind  or  self  not  only  is,  but 
also  recognises  itself  to  be,  surrounded  by,  and  related  to, 
other  minds  and  selves,  as  well  as  non-mental  objects.  Psy-« 
chology,  like  every  other  science,  is  a  social  phenomenon. 
The  knowledge,  i.e.,  true  theory  of  what  mind  is,  which  it 
seeks  to  offer,  is  attained  by  the  cooperation  of  different 
minds,  communicating  to  each  other,  in  fact  pooling  and 
even  correcting,  their  observations  and  theories.  For  this 
to  be  possible,  minds  must  be  capable  of  becoming  "  com- 
mon "  and  "  public  "  objects  to  each  other,  and  "  objective >n 
psychology  has  here  its  justification.  At  the  same  time,1 
each  mind  has  an  individuality  of  its  own,  which  not 
only  enables  it  to  be  discriminated  as  one  "  object "  from 
others  of  the  same  sort,  but  which  enables  it  also  to  make 
its  own  distinctive  contribution  to  the  social  intercourse  of 
minds  in  general,  and  in  particular  to  the  cooperation  of 


252  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  IX 

minds  in  the  building  up  of  knowledge,  whether  of  minds 
or  of  anything  else.  Here  lies  the  value  of  introspec- 
tion; here,  too,  the  relative  justification  of  the  "privacy" 
view. 

In  short,  to  sum  up,  the  dialectical  difficulties  which  we 
had  found  surrounding  the  theory  of  mind,  derive,  so  we  now 
see,  from  the  intensified  difficulties  surrounding  the  theory 
of  self.  Psychology,  as  a  social  phenomenon,  is  possible 
only  for  minds  individually  capable  of  self-consciousness. 
And  self -consciousness,  as  we  may  now  put  it,  is  double- 
edged.  It  has  its  basis,  on  the  one  hand,  in  immediate  feel- 
ing, this-here-now.  But  it  requires  no  less,  and  is  sus- 
tained and  developed  only  by,  the  varying  relations  of  each 
self,  not  only  to  the  "  not-self "  in  general,  but  to  specific 
other  selves  in  social  intercourse.  If  we  try  to  whittle  down 
the  self  to  mere  immediate  feeling,  the  very  distinction  be- 
tween self  and  not-self,  or  other  self,  disappears,  and  noth- 
ing is  left  but  the  general  contrast  between  datum  and  non- 
datum.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  go  for  the  concrete  self, 
as  known  to  itself  and  to  others,  we  not  only  find  that  data 
are  transcended,1  but  that  this  transcending  is  a  social  or 
cooperative  process.  Moreover,  it  is  social  or  cooperative 
.at,  broadly,  two  levels.  One  is  the  level  of  ordinary  social 
intercourse  in  all  its  diverse  practical  sides:  the  rubbing  of 
mind  against  mind,  the  various  mutual  influences  and  con- 
tacts, the  actions  and  reactions  which  are  constantly  form- 
ing each  of  us,  the  play  of  self  against  others,  friendly  or 
hostile.  The  other  is  the  level  of  reflective  theory,  at  which 
minds  who  have  at  the  former  level  learned  to  recognise 
themselves,  and  each  other,  as  selves,  take  stock  of  this 
whole  situation  and  try  to  work  out  a  systematic  and  com- 
prehensive theory  of  it. 

^ 1  Whether  we  describe  this  transcending  as  inference,  or  construc- 
tion, or  interpretation,  or  synthesis,  makes  no  difference. 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  253 

Not  the  least  of  the  difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way  of 
such  an  attempt  arises  from  the  elusive  and  shifting  mean- 
ings of  "  self-consciousness  ".  Abstractly,  it  is  tempting  to 
argue  that  self-hood  (being  a  self)  must  precede  self-con- 
sciousness (being  conscious  of  one's  self).  There  must  be 
a  self,  it  may  be  said,  before  there  can  be  consciousness  of 
one,  but  experience  appears  to  show  that  one's  self  is  not 
simply  a  datum,  but  grows  and  develops,  one  might  almost 
say  lives,  in  all  the  nuances  and  oscillations  of  self-con- 
sciousness. Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  we  want  to  distinguish 
being  conscious  from  being  self-conscious.  Merely  to  have 
experiences  is  not  the  same  thing  as  to  have  experiences  into 
the  pattern  of  which  the  difference  between  self  and  not-self 
enters. 

This  last  point,  perhaps,  gives  us  the  clue  which  leads 
to  the  solution.  Is  it  not  best  to  say  that  a  mind  is  not  a 
"  self "  in  the  pregnant  sense,  until  its  experiences  take 
on  the  characteristic  structure  of  a  distinction  between  self 
and  not-self?  To  be  merely  conscious,  then,  will  mean  to* 
have  experiences  into  which,  for  all  that  they  are  mine,  no 
trace  of  a  contrast  between  me  and  not-me  enters.  To  bet 
self-conscious  will  be  to  have  experiences  marked  by  this 
contrast.  And  only  when,  and  in  so  far  as,  this  contrast  is 
felt,  or  is  capable  of  being  felt,  will  it  be  safe  to  say  that 
there  is  a  self  to  be  conscious  of. 

Selfhood  and  self-consciousness  thus  hang  very  closely 
together  and  both,  at  the  same  time,  imply  a  social  medium, 
i.e.,  effective  relationship  to  other  selves.  Moreover,  on 
this  view  we  can  further  distinguish  between  self-conscious- 
ness and  self-knowledge.  The  latter  belongs  definitely  to 
the  level  of  reflective  theory.  It  consists  of  one's  own  judg- 
ments about  one's  self.  It  implies  that  one  makes  of  one's 
self  an  object  of  attention  and  study.  The  judgments  of 
explicit  self-knowledge  require  to  be  distinguished  from  all 


254  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.  IX 

the  countless  judgments  which  are  mere  expressions  of  self- 
consciousness.  Most  of  the  judgments  of  current  conversa- 
tion in  which  "  I "  figures  as  subject,  are  spontaneous  self- 
revelations  rather  than  critical  self-judgments.  They  belong 
to  the  give-and-take  of  social  intercourse.  They  are  not  made 
with  scientific  interest  in  the  effort  after  self-knowledge. 
Relatively  to  self-knowledge,  they  are  data — materials 
for  a  study  of  self.  It  is  clear  from  this  that  self- 
knowledge  enjoys  no  special  prerogative  of  infallibility.  The 
theoretical  judgments  I  make  about  myself,  do  not,  as  a 
class,  exhibit  any  marked  superiority  in  respect  of  freedom 
from  error.  And,  apart  from  self-deception,  it  is  a  far  from 
easy  task  to  make  the  whole  of  one's  self  effectively  an  ob- 
ject of  study.  This  is  not  only  because  in  some  respects 
others  are  in  a  better  position  to  know  me  as  I  really 
am,  than  I  am  myself,  but  even  more  because  it  is  hard  for 
reflection  to  comprehend  and  order  the  endless  ramifica- 
tions and  fluctuations  of  self-consciousness.  For  the  line 
between  Self  and  Not-Self,  or  Other  Self,  is  not  a  fixed,  but 
a  shifting,  one;  and  elements  which  in  one  context  fall  on 
the  side  of  the  self,  may  be  excluded  from  it  in  another. 
There  are  even  experiences  in  which  the  distinction  between 
self  and  other,  whilst  still  felt,  is  yet  transcended  in  a  union 
of  self  and  other,  an  identification  of  self  with  other.  It 
was,  we  may  suppose,  the  thought  of  these  fluctuations  of 
self -consciousness,  and  the  consequent  difficulty  of  "  giving 
an  account "  of  one's  self,  which  moved  Mr.  Bradley  to 
write:  "  We  are  all  sure  that  we  exist,  but  in  what  sense  and 
what  character — as  to  that  we  are  most  of  us  in  helpless 
uncertainty  and  in  blind  confusion.  And  so  far  is  the  self 
from  being  clearer  than  things  outside  us  that,  to  speak  gen- 
erally, we  never  know  what  we  mean  when  we  talk  of  it  ".x 
The  difficulty  is  akin  to  that  which,  by  common  consent,  be- 
1  Appearance  and  Reality,  ch.  ix,  p.  76. 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  255 

sets  all  attempts  at  an  "  objective  "  history  of  contemporary 
events. 

Our  argument  sums  up  to  this:  Self-consciousness  is  the 
name  for  all  forms  of  experience  the  structure  of  which  ex- 
hibits the  characteristic  distinction  of  Self  and  Other.  Such 
experiences  are  the  source  of,  and  furnish  the  data  for,  ex- 
plicit self-knowledge.  They  bear  witness  to  the  existence 
of  self  in  a  world  other  than  it,  and  containing  other  selves 
in  various  relations  to  it.  More  particularly,  self-conscious- 
ness is  the  general  form  of  experience  for  a  self  in  social 
intercourse  with  other  selves.  If  there  is  a  level  of  mental 
life  at  which  experiences  are  not  characterised  by  any  sense 
of  distinction  between  self  and  not-self,  it  is  better  not  to 
speak  of  a  "  self  "  at  that  stage,  though  once  the  distinction 
has  come  to  be  felt  and  the  self  come  to  be  recognised  as 
against  the  other,  these  un-self-conscious  experiences  can  be 
constructively  affiliated  to  those  marked  by  self-conscious- 
ness. 

A  last  source  of  difficulty  demands  to  be  briefly  dealt 
with.  Just  as  psychology  is  not  concerned  with  a  particular 
mind  for  its  own  sake,  least  of  all  with  the  psychologist's 
own  mind,  but  studies  minds  of  all  sorts  as  furnishing  the 
materials  for  a  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  mind  as  such,  in 
its  different  forms  under  different  conditions,  so  our  interest 
here  is  in  "  the  "  self.  So  far  as  each  of  us  supplies  data 
for  such  a  study  from  his  own  self,  the  accounts  of  parti- 
cular selves  have  to  be  stripped  of  their  autobiographical 
character  and  generalised.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  every  parti- 
cular is  a  "  this-such  ",  an  instance  of  a  universal;  and  it! 
is  as  an  instance  bringing  new  knowledge  of  the  universal, 
that  the  particular,  even  in  extreme  and  abnormal  cases, 
has  its  value  for  science.  We  come  here  upon  yet  another 
way  in  which  self  and  self-consciousness  turn  out  to  be 


256  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

double-edged.  For  the  terms  point,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the 
extreme  of  individual  uniqueness,  "  self-identity ",  differ- 
entiation from  all  that  is  "  other  "  and  "  not-me  ".  Yet,  on 
the  other,  within  varying  limits,  what  is  true  of  one  self  is 
true  of  others.  And  more  than  that:  selves  do  not  merely 
form  a  class  of  similars,  but  as  members  of  communities 
supplement  and,  as  it  were,  complete  one  another  in  every 
cooperative  enterprise  or  achievement  which  it  is  beyond 
the  power  of  any  single  self  to  plan  or  achieve  by  itself. 
The  very  uniqueness  of  each  self  and  their  differences  from 
each  other  become  positively  significant  through  member- 
ship in  a  common  life,  so  far  at  least  as  differentiation  of 
function  corresponds  to  the  differentiation  in  character  and 
ability  of  the  constituent  selves.  In  a  very  curious  and  strik- 
ing way  this  is  illustrated  by  the  meaning  of  the  personal 
pronoun,  in  the  first  person  singular  and  plural.  The  speech 
of  ordinary  intercourse  is  "  personal "  and  self-revealing,  or 
self-communicating,  to  a  high  degree.  No  other  word,  we 
can  safely  say,  is  used  with  such  frequency  as  the  personal 
pronoun,  I,  and  its  derivatives.  This  fact  bears  witness  to 
the  centrality  of  the  "  self-other  "  structure  of  experience. 
This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  we  are  always  "  think- 
ing of  ourselves  "  in  a  reprehensible  sense,  or  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  disinterested  interest  in  the  "  Other  ",  be 
it  the  physical  world,  or  fellow-men.  But  it  does  mean  that 
the  self-not-self  form  is  dominant  in  most  of  human  experi- 
ence. Thence  results  the  curious  ambiguity  in  the  meaning 
of  "  I  ",  which  is  unlike  the  ambiguity  of  any  other  word 
in  the  language.  "  I  "  is,  of  course,  in  the  first  instance  a 
denotative  or  demonstrative  term,  a  label  for  self-reference, 
a  signal  for  directing  the  attention  of  others  to  oneself. 
But  it  differs  from  other  demonstratives  in  that  it  has  mean- 
ing only  as  applied  by  each  speaker  exclusively  to  himself. 
Other  demonstratives  may  mean  the  same  object  in  ap- 


Ch.  IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  257 

plication  for  different  speakers,  as,  e.g.,  when  you  and  I 
both  refer  to  "  this  page."  But  when  I  say  "  I  ",  and  when 
you  say  "  I  ",  the  same  word  means  a  different  self  to  each 
of  us.  "  I "  is  as  exclusive  a  symbol  in  application  as  a 
proper  name,  but  with  this  difference  that  it  is  "  proper  " 
only  in  each  person's  application  of  it  by  himself  to  him- 
self. I  is  a  common  device  for  exclusive  self-reference  by 
individual  selves.  But  just  because  it  is  a  common  device, 
just  because  each  self  refers  to  itself  as  "  I ",  differentiates 
itself  from  "  you  ",  recognises  community  with  others  in 
"  we  ",  this  common  function  can  be  studied  as  a  universal, 
under  the  name,  or  description,  of  "  the  self  "  (the  "  Ego  ", 
or,  as  James  has  it,  the  "Me").  At  the  same  time, 
our  whole  argument  makes  it  clear  how  one-sided  and  frag- 
mentary any  account  of  the  self  is  bound  to  be  which 
ignores  the  experiences  expressed  by  each  individual  self 
in  the  "  we  "  form  of  language.  The  plural  of  the  personal 
pronoun  is  standing  testimony,  too  often  neglected  by 
philosophers  as  well  as  by  psychologists,  to  the  fact  that  the 
identity  of  individual  selves  is  compatible  with  their  func- 
tioning as  constituents  of  identities  (wholes,  systems)  of 
a  higher  order,  and  that  these  relationships  are  recognised, 
and  expressed  in  language,  as  characteristic  of  what  are  per- 
haps the  most  important  forms  of  self-conscious  experience. 

The  "  saving  of  the  self  "  calls,  not  so  much  for  a  defini- 
tion of  the  self,  as  for  a  theory  exhibiting  the  self,  enabling 
it  to  be  appreciated,  we  might  almost  say  perceived,  within 
its  proper  context  and  in  the  typical  range  of  its  manifesta- 
tions. This  task  we  can  best  attempt  by  dealing,  first,  with 
the  "  constituents  "  of  the  self;  next,  with  personal  identity; 
and,  lastly,  with  the  fluctuations  of  self -consciousness. 
Throughout,  our  task  demands  the  synthesis  of  two  points 
of  view.  Just  as  in  dealing  with  "  mind  ",  we  found  it  neces- 


258  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

sary  to  combine  an  "  objective  "  with  a  "  subjective  "  ap- 
proach, the  evidence  of  the  spectator  with  the  evidence  of 
introspection,  so  in  dealing  with  the  self  there  are  two 
sources  of  judgments.  One  consists  of  the  utterances,  naive 
or  reflective,  which  every  one  makes  about  himself;  the 
other  of  the  judgments  uttered  by  others,  or  implicit  in 
their  attitude  and  behaviour.1 

( i )  In  order  to  appreciate  the  movement  from  an  abstract 
to  a  concrete  theory,  we  cannot  do  better  than  begin  our  dis- 
cussion of  the  constituents  of  the  Self  with  the  crude  body- 
soul  metaphysics  which  still  do  duty  for  a  theory  of  the 
self  in  popular  thought. 

Dr.  J.  McT.  E.  McTaggart,  in  his  discussion  of  immortal- 
ity,2 calls  attention  to  the  awkwardness  of  the  current 
phrase,  I  "  have  "  a  soul,  suggesting,  as  it  does,  that  "  my  " 
soul  is  something  I  own,  a  piece  of  property  almost,  which 
is  no  part,  or  constituent  of  me,  its  owner.  His  point  is 

JIt  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  two  sets  of  judgments  which  we 
are  here  distinguishing  in  respect  of  their  source  and  point  of  view, 
do  not  fall  apart  as  they  do  in  the  following  passage  which  is  typical 
of  a  theory,  the  prevalence  of  which  has  done  much  to  retard  the 
development  of  a  concrete  study  of  both  mind  and  self.  "  Suppose, 
then,  I  could  remove  the  brain-cap  of  one  of  you,  and  expose  the 
brain  in  active  work, — as  it  doubtless  is  at  this  moment.  Suppose, 
further,  that  my  senses  were  absolutely  perfect,  so  that  I  could  see 
everything  that  was  going  on  there.  What  would  I  see?  Only  de- 
compositions and  recompositions,  molecular  agitations  and  vibrations ; 
in  a  word,  physical  phenomena,  and  nothing  else.  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  else  there  to  see.  But  you,  the  subject  of  this  experiment, 
what  do  you  perceive?  You  see  nothing  of  all  this;  you  perceive  an 
entirely  different  set  of  phenomena;  viz.,  consciousness, — thought,  emo- 
tion, will ;  psychical  phenomena ;  in  a  word,  a  self,  a  person.  From 
the  outside  we  see  only  physical,  from  the  inside  only  psychical  phe- 
nomena."— Quoted  from  Professor  Joseph  LeConte's  comments  on 
Royce's  Conception  of  God  (1895),  pp.  43,  4.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed 
out  that,  even  from  the  "outside"  there  is  more  to  be  seen  of  a 

Kerson's  mind  and  self  than  is  here  conceded.    And  as  for  the  "  inside  ", 
:t  this  experiment  decide.     Suppose,  while  Professor  Le  Conte  was 
exposing  the  brain  of   some  one,  a  third  person   removed  the   Pro- 
fessor's skull-cap  and  studied  his  brain,  would  the  things  which  the 
Professor  is  seeing,  the  "  molecular  agitations  "  and  the  rest,  thereby 
suddenly    be    transformed    from    "  physical "    into    "  psychical "    phe- 
nomena? 
2  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  Ch.  iii,  p.  78. 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  259 

that  the  immortality  of  my  soul,  if  it  really  were  thus  dif- 
ferent and  separable  from  me,  would  be  worthless.  What 
interests  us  is  &  immortality  of  that  which,  saying  "  I ", 
means  itself.  The  important  question  is  not,  Is  my  soul  im- 
mortal? but,  Am  I  immortal?  Or,  to  put  it  differently,  if 
my  soul's  immortality  is  the  same  thing  as  my  immortality, 
then  my  soul  is  not  something  which  I  have,  but  some- 
thing which  I  am.  I  am  my  soul:  but  to  affirm  this  is,  very 
obviously,  to  affirm  a  theory,  to  give  an  account  of  the 
nature  of  my  "  self  ";  and  it  is  such  a  theory  quite  regard- 
less of  whether  my  soul,  i.e.,  myself,  does  or  does  not  sur- 
vive death. 

Should  the  same  conclusion  be  extended  to  the  body? 
The  phrase,  I  have  a  body,  seems  parallel  to  the  phrase,  I 
have  a  soul.  Should  it,  too,  be  interpreted  to  mean,  I  am 
my  body?  This  is,  clearly,  what  is  intended  ordinarily  by 
popular  thought.  "  I  am  my  body  and  my  soul  ",  or,  "  my' 
self  consists  of  body  and  soul ",  would  fairly  sum  up  its 
position.  For  even  when  it  is  said  that  I  "  have  "  body  and 
soul,  the  "  having  "  is  intended  to  convey  a  relationship 
much  more  close  and  essential  than  mere  ownership  of 
things  which  I  can  acquire  or  lose,  possess  and  use  or  give 
away  and  use  up.  A  man,  it  will  be  urged,  can  be  stripped  I 
of  all  his  possessions,  and  still  be  himself.  He  can  be 
divorced  from  all  his  associations  to  other  human  beings,  to 
his  home,  his  country,  his  church,  and  still  retain  his  iden- 
tity. But  if,  in  fact  or  in  hypothesis,  you  take  his  body  from 
him  or  his  soul,  in  either  case  is  he  destroyed.  The  remain- 
ing fragment,  supposing  anything  to  remain  after  the  muti- 
lation, is  no  longer  what  he,  or  any  one  else,  would  call  his 
"  self ".  His  body  and  his  soul  are  the  irreducible  con- 
stituents of  his  "  self  ". 

The  above  statement  represents  an  attempt  to  set  down 
in  explicit  terms  the  implicit  metaphysics  of  current  views 


260  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

concerning  what  a  human  being  is  essentially  made  of.  If 
the  statement  strikes  any  reader  as  obvious  and  familiar, 
then  this  is  so  far  testimony  to  the  success  of  our  attempt. 
But  current  thought  is  not  so  simple  or  self-consistent,  as 
we  have  here  made  it  out  to  be.  Moral  and  religious  teach- 
ings, to  say  nothing  of  metaphysical  theories  quite  differ- 
ently oriented,  have  passed  as  fragments,  and  streaks  of 
tradition,  and  allusions  in  literature,  at  least  into  the  average 
thought  of  educated  people,  and  a  very  brief  reflection  will 
suggest  questions  to  which  the  above  statement  can  supply 
no  answer,  and  theories  which  are  inconsistent  with  it.  If 
we  try  to  hold  to  the  view  that  a  self  consists  of  a  body  and 
a  soul,  such  questions  as:  What  is  a  body?  What  is  a  soul? 
How  are  they  connected  and  related?  cannot  be  put  aside. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  plenty  of  theories  which, 
whilst  distinguishing  no  less  sharply  between  body  and  soul, 
insist  that  the  self  is  identical  only  with  the  soul,  and  that 
the  body  is  not  genuinely  part  of  it  at  all.  Most  of  these 
;theories  are  inspired  mainly  by  moral  or  religious  motives, 
connected  with  beliefs  in  survival  of  death,  pre-existence, 
re-incarnation.  But  recently  the  same  position  has  been 
defended,  in  a  purely  scientific  spirit  on  grounds  of  intro- 
spective analysis  by  Professor  John  Laird  in  his  Problems 
of  the  Self.1  And  there  are  theories  combining  both  mo- 
tives, with  much  variation  in  detail,  like  Professor  W.  Mc- 
Dougall's  "  animistic  "  theory  in  Body  and  Mind,  or  Miss 
May  Sinclair's  vivacious  argument,  ranging  from  Samuel 
Butler  and  Freud  to  the  mysticism  of  East  and  West,  in 
A  Defence  of  Idealism. 

An  exhaustive  examination  of  all  these  experiments 
in  speculation  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay.  But 
a  few  salient  points  require  to  be  touched  on,  if  we  are 

1  For  a  review  of  this  book  by  the  writer,  see  Philosophical  Review, 
vol.  xxvii,  no.  3,  pp.  296-303. 


Ch.  IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  261 

to   exhibit   the   contrast   between   abstract   and   concrete 
theories. 

The  best  preparation  for  a  critical  appreciation  of  the 
body-and-soul  theory  of  the  self  is  to  realise,  not  only  how 
fully  and  adequately  all  that  one  feels,  thinks,  wills,  does, 
can  be  expressed  in  terms  which  do  not  introduce  the  dis-i 
tinction  of  body  and  soul  at  all,  but  even  more  to  what  an 
extent  the  attempt  to  classify  the  elements  of  one's  being 
under  these  two  mutually  exclusive  heads  cuts  across  the 
felt  unity  of  the  self.  A  trivial  example  may  serve  to  bring 
out  the  point.  Is  it  really  satisfactory  to  analyse  the  expe- 
rience of  being  bitten  by  a  mosquito,  by  assigning  the  bite 
to  the  body  and  the  itch  to  the  soul?  Emotions,  again,  re- 
sist equally  the  attempt  to  set  them  down  exclusively  either 
to  the  body  or  to  the  soul,  and  the  attempt  to  divide  their 
felt  unity  between  the  two.  This,  surely,  is  the  plain  moral 
of  the  James-Lange  theory  of  emotion,  which  shows  that 
what  we  feel  are  the  physical  disturbances,  the  beating  of 
the  heart,  the  sudden  flush  in  the  face,  the  shiver  down 
the  spine.  Is  it  really  possible  to  analyse  voluntary  activity, 
e.g.,  the  doing  of  one's  work,  on  the  scheme  of  a  material 
body  and  an  immaterial  soul,  mysteriously  conjoined,  some- 
how cooperating  in  the  production  of  an  intelligent,  purpose- 
ful act?  Take  a  man  in  a  fight  and  split  him  up,  if  you  can,t 
with  your  body-soul  theory,  so  as  to  show  that  his  body 
does  this  and  his  soul  does  that.  Take  any  desire,  more 
especially  a  so-called  "  physical "  desire;  take  hunger  or 
sex  and,  once  more,  try  your  analysis  honestly  on  the  facts. 
If  the  body-and-soul  theory  holds,  such  a  phrase  as  "  bodily,1 
desire  "  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  For  the  desire  will 
have  to  be  assigned  to  the  mind,  and  nothing  strictly  physi- 
cal will  enter  into  it,  whilst  the  bodily  state,  correspondingly, 
must  be  taken  as  divorced  from  all  consciousness.  In  being 


262  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

hungry,  where  is  the  line  between  body  and  mind?  This 
point  is  not  countered  by  the  reminder  that  there  is  a 
hunger  of  the  soul  for  righteousness  as  well  as  a  hunger 
of  the  body  for  food.  This  merely  shows  that  the  self,  being 
many-sided,  hungers  for  many  different  things.  It  does 
not  show  that  it  is  a  compound  of  a  material  and  an  im- 
material "  substance  ",  somehow  conjoined. 

Our  suggestion,  then,  is  that  the  two-substance  theory  of 
the  self  is  an  artificial  rendering  of  the  ways  in  which  a 
self  actually  experiences  itself.  But  we  ought  not,  for  this 
reason,  simply  to  condemn  it  without  considering  on  their 
merits  either  the  grounds  which  make  the  two-substance 
theory  plausible,  or  recent  attempts  to  reformulate  and 
defend  it. 

The  grounds  which  favour  a  dualistic  theory  of  the  self 
may  be  grouped  as  being  either  moral  and  religious,  or  else 
scientific. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  experience  of  moral 
conflict — of  the  self  divided  between,  and  torn  by,  desires, 
not  only  incompatible  in  execution,  but  opposed  in  moral 
value — has  done  much  to  confirm  the  antithesis  of  body  and 
soul  in  popular  thought.  It  would  go  beyond  the  evidence 
to  say  that  in  this  conflict  we  have  one  of  the  original  roots 
of  the  theory.  But  we  can  say  that  the  conflict  lends  itself 
to  formulation  in  terms  of  the  theory,  and  thus  in  turn  lends 
plausibility  to  the  theory.  More  particularly  when  the  con- 
flict takes  the  form  of  an  effort  to  resist  a  "  temptation  ", 
to  prevent  strong  excitement  or  intense  craving  from  pass- 
ing into  overt  action,  to  maintain  the  supremacy  of  "  will " 
or  "  reason  "  over  "  impulse  "  or  "  passion  ",  the  antithesis 
of  "  flesh  "  and  "  spirit  "  springs  readily  to  our  lips.  The 
task  being  primarily  to  restrain  bodily  movement,  to  re- 
press a  physical  disturbance  lest  it  burst  into  action,  the 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  263 

power  to  control  and  oppose  the  body  is  naturally  ascribed 
to  something  other  than  the  body,  though  still  part  of  the 
self.  To  interpret  a  conflict  within  the  self  as  due  to  dis- 
tinct substances,  or  forces,  or,  in  the  most  attenuated  ver- 
sion, faculties,  is  the  natural  procedure  of  primitive  meta- 
physics. The  experience  is  that  I  am  trying  to  control 
myself,  to  do  this  rather  than  that,  to  refrain  from  doing 
what  I  know  I  ought  not  to  do.  The  theory  turns  this  into 
a  struggle  between  my  "  spirit "  and  my  "  flesh  ",  ascribing 
failure  to  the  "  weakness  "  of  the  latter  despite  the  "  willing- 
ness "  of  the  former.  And  it  ends  by  differentiating  body 
and  soul  so  completely,  that  it  becomes  a  wellnigh  impossible 
task  to  explain  how  the  one  can  influence  or  control  the 
other  at  all.  A  genuine  fact  of  moral  experience  has  been 
translated  into  an  abstract  metaphysical  scheme. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  merely  the  experience  of  moral  con- 
flict which  has  exercised  its  influence  on  this  development. 
There  are  also  all  the  experiences  which  lead  to  the  familiar 
estimates  of  the  body  as  both  the  indispensable  instrument 
of,  and  also  a  handicap  to,  the  soul.  Without  it,  the  soul 
can  effect  nothing,  yet  with  it,  it  can  effect  nothing  per- 
fectly. If  we  go  behind  the  metaphors  of  instrument  and 
handicap  to  the  experiences  crystallised  in  them,  we  see  at 
once  that  education  and  self-education,  training  and  learn- 
ing, the  acquisition  and  the  practice  of  the  skill  to  do  some- 
thing, characterise,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  every  human 
life.  From  the  infant's  efforts  to  learn  to  walk,  feed  itself, 
clean  itself,  clothe  itself;  to  talk,  write,  read,  up  to  the 
mastery,  later  on,  of  special  forms  of  manual  skill,  of  special 
expertness  in,  and  aptitude  for,  conducting  industrial  and 
commercial  undertakings,  or  scientific  researches,  or  any 
other  human  enterprise — the  general  task  is  to  learn  to  do 
something  and  to  do  it  well.  Moreover,  these  doings  have 
to  be  regulated  and  ordered,  if  room  is  to  be  found  for  them 


264  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.IX 

in  life,  compatibly  with  their  relative  urgency  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  resources  of  strength  and  time  on  the  other. 
And,  lastly,  some  of  these  activities  not  only  stand  higher 
in  the  scale  of  values  than  others,  but  are  possible  only  if 
other  activities  are  managed  with  strict  economy.  "  Dis- 
sipation "  not  only  disorganises  life,  but  consumes  the  time 
and  strength  which  ought  to  be  given  to  doing  more  im- 
portant things  as  excellently  as  one  can.  Now  in  all  activi- 
ties, from  the  manual  to  the  most  intellectual,  the  body  is 
involved.  There  is  no  "  doing "  without  it,  there  is  no 
excellence  of  achievement  attainable  without  training  one's 
body,  or  without  disciplining  and  ordering  the  needs  and 
impulses  which  have  their  basis  in  its  organisation.  One 
might  almost  sum  up  the  task  of  education,  moral  and  intel- 
lectual, in  the  phrase  "  learning  to  make  the  most  of  one's 
body."  Along  this  line  we  are  led  to  the  suggestion,  which 
is  in  harmony  with  the  conclusions  of  the  preceding  essay, 
that  one  of  the  best  clues  to  the  nature  of  soul  or  spirit  is 
to  think  of  them  in  terms  of  the  activities  which  we  have 
learned  to  perform,  the  excellence  with  which  we  habitually 
perform  them,  and  the  worth  which  belongs  to  them  in  an 
objective  scale  of  values.  From  this  angle  we  can  under- 
stand how  the  body  comes  to  be  looked  on  as  the  instru- 
ment of  the  soul.  And  from  this  angle,  too,  we  can  under- 
stand why  it  should  seem  a  handicap  or  obstacle.  For  train- 
ing involves  fatigue  and  pain  which  make  it  hard  to  per- 
sist. The  needs  of  the  organism,  especially  hunger  and 
sex,  with  the  enjoyment  attendant  upon  their  satisfaction, 
have  legitimate  claims,  and  yet  make  the  ordering  of  life  in 
subordination  to  higher  values  more  difficult.  Through  the 
limitations  of  physical  endowment,  accomplishment  tends 
to  fall  short  of  aspiration.  If  often  we  do  less  well  than 
our  best,  and  if  the  best  we  can  do  does  not  measure  up 
to  the  ideally  best  we  can  conceive,  the  body  tends  to  receive 


Ch.  IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  265 

the  blame.  The  "  flesh  "  is  either  too  weak  to  respond 
to  the  call  of  the  "  spirit  ",  or  else  obstructs  with  rebellious 
desires  of  its  own.  Thence  results  the  hostility  to  the  body 
which  marks  the  extreme  forms  of  asceticism,  the  morbid 
delight  in  self-torture,  the  attempt  to  wrest  spiritual  per- 
fection from  self-inflicted  pains  and  repressions.  Rare  as 
systematic  self -persecution  has  become  nowadays,  yet  the 
germ  of  it  lurks  in  the  theory  that  the  body  is  a  prison,  or 
a  tomb,  from  which  the  soul  must  seek  escape;  that  the 
flesh,  or,  generalised,  "  matter  ",  is  the  principle  of  evil 
and  imperfection,  and  that  goodness  can  be  attained  only 
by  emancipation  from  it.  Asceticism  is  but  a  perversely 
logical  attempt  to  practise  this  emancipation  here  and  now. 
But  death,  above  all,  has  been  seized  upon  by  the  imagina- 
tion of  mankind  as  the  release  of  the  soul  from  the  bondage 
of  the  flesh,  as  the  gateway  to  a  glorified  existence.  In 
"  shuffling  off  this  mortal  coil ",  we  terminate  the  ill-as- 
sorted manage  de  convenance  of  body  and  soul.  Yet, 
though  death,  viewed  thus,  should  be  welcomed  as  a  bless- 
ing, it  is  often  dreaded  and  generally  accounted  an  evil — an 
inconsistency  of  which  the  Fool  in  Twelfth  Night  makes 
pretty  play:  "  The  more  fool,  Madonna,  to  mourn  for  your 
brother's  soul  being  in  heaven  ".*• 

At  the  same  time,  a  moment's  reflection  shows  that  the 
discarnate  or  disembodied  soul,  which  is  held  to  survive  the 
dissolution  of  its  partnership  with  the  body,  whereas  the 
body — "  dust  unto  dust " — is  dispersed  into  its  elements, 
must  be  something  very  different  from  the  embodied  self 
as  others  know  it,  or  even  as  iFknows  itself.  On  the  ques- 
tion of  the  evidence  for  survival,  we  shall  have  something 
to  say  presently.  For  the  moment,  we  are  interested  in 
these  speculations  concerning  the  destiny  of  the  soul,  chiefly 
from  the  angle  of  the  light  they  throw  on  the  nature  of  the 

aAct  I,  scene  5. 


266  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

self.  In  detail  the  survival-beliefs  have  been  variously  ela- 
borated. McTaggart's  contention  that  the  soul's  survival  of 
bodily  death  ought  not  to  be  considered  without  weighing 
also  the  possibility  of  pre-existence  before  birth,  has  much 
plausibility.  And  if  once  we  consider  this  present  incarna- 
tion as  an  interlude  in  discarnate  existence,  we  can  hardly 
refuse  to  consider  also  the  hypothesis  of  many  such  inter- 
ludes, i.e.,  the  theory  of  successive  incarnations,  in  higher 
or  lower  forms  according  to  the  moral  merit  of  this  present 
life  in  the  body;  with  final  emancipation  from  the  need  of 
incarnation  as  the  reward  for  distinguished  purity  and  saint- 
liness.  However,  whether  we  take  such  beliefs  seriously,  or 
reckon  them  among  the  curiosities  of  religious  mythology, 
it  is  not  wholly  beside  the  point  to  consider  what  conse- 
quences for  the  theory  of  the  self  they  would  involve,  if 
they  were  true.  The  important  consequences  turn  on  the 
separability  of  body  and  soul.  It  implies  that  the  normal 
theory  of  the  self  as  consisting  of  body  and  soul  somehow 
conjoined,  has  to  be  modified  so  as  to  identify  the  self  es- 
sentially with  the  soul.  And,  this  done,  the  problem  be- 
comes one  partly  of  the  identity  of  the  soul  in  its  incarnate 
and  discarnate  conditions  of  existence,  and  partly  of  the 
possibility  of  self-identification  or  recognition.  Self-identi- 
fication, we  may  say  at  once,  requires  memory.  Survival 
without  memory  would,  in  effect,  be  survival  as  a  different 
person;  or,  at  least,  in  the  absence  of  memory  my  relation 
to  a  previous  existence  of  my  own  would  be  like  my  rela- 
tion to  the  life  of  another  person  of  whose  very  existence  I 
am  ignorant.  Pathological  cases  of  complete  loss  of  mem- 
ory, or  of  "  alternating  personality  ",  appear  to  show  this 
clearly.  The  evidence  for  memory  of  previous  incarnations 
is  scarce,  and  its  truth  will,  in  general,  be  unverifiable.1 

1 1  cannot  pretend  to  an  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  literature, 
and  Fielding  Hall's  account  of  such  memory  occurring  not  infrequently 
^mong  the  Burmese  is  the  only  definite  reference  I  can  now  recall 


Ch.  IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  267 

It  does  not  really  help  us  in  this  situation  to  claim,  with 
Samuel  Butler,  that  the  automatic  completeness  and  facility 
of  many  reflexes  and  instinctive  actions  are  explicable  only 
on  the  assumption,  that  we  remember  them  so  well  from 
having  practised  them  through  untold  previous  existences; 
or  to  support  this  claim,  again  with  Butler,  by  an  appeal 
to  Weismann's  theory  of  the  continuity  of  the  germ-plasm. 
For  the  germ-plasm  is  a  physical  thing  and  its  continuity, 
or  deathlessness,  assuming  this  to  be  conceded  by  biologists, 
is  certainly  not  the  same  thing  as  what  is  meant  in  our 
present  context  by  the  immortality  of  the  soul  or  the  self. 
And,  further,  even  if  heredity  be  a  case  of  memory,  we  are 
still  far  from  the  recollection  of  specific  acts  and  incidents 
in  historically  discriminated  previous  existences,  which 
would  be  required  for  explicit  self-identification.  Nor  is  it 
easy  to  see  how  identity  could  be  conclusively  established 
from  the  point  of  view  of  other  persons.  In  cases  of  "  alter- 
nating personality  ",  as  in  law-cases  turning  on  claims  to 
identity,  it  is  in  the  main  the  identity  of  the  body,  as  seen 
by  others,  which  guides  us.  And  the  medical  analysis  of 
psychopathic  cases  hardly  as  yet  makes  it  possible  to  decide 
conclusively  between  the  two  hypotheses  of  "  dissociation  " 
of  one  self  and  of  a  multiplicity  of  selves  or  souls,  genuinely 
distinct,  yet  inhabiting  the  same  body.  On  the  former  view 
— on  the  whole,  the  more  plausible — we  are  dealing  with 
split-off  fragments  of  one  self.  On  the  latter,  we  are  back 
at  something  like  the  old  concept  of  "  possession  ".  At  any 
rate,  the  spectator's  task  of  establishing  the  identity  of  a 
soul,  in  abstraction  from  the  body,  is  one  of  no  small  diffi- 
culty, especially  when  there  is  no  memory  of  self-identifica- 

(The  Soul  of  a  Nation,  Ch.  xxii).  Kipling's  The  Finest  Story  in  the 
World  (originally  published  in  Many  Inventions')  is  a  good  example 
of  the  literary  exploitation  of  the  possibility.  The  fact  that  memory 
is  lacking  is  recognised  by  the  provision  in  the  myth  of  Er,  according 
to  which  souls,  prior  to  re-incarnation,  drink  of  the  river  of  Forget- 
fulness  (Plato,  Republic,  Book  X). 


268  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

tion  on  the  part  of  the  self  under  observation  to  assist 
him. 

It  is  also  worth  considering  what  a  profound  difference 
it  would  make  to  any  one's  experience  of  himself  to  be  se- 
parated from  his  present  body,  or  to  be  re-incarnated  in 
another  body,  possibly  not  human  at  all.  The  change  might 
well  be  so  complete  as,  in  fact,  not  only  to  destroy  the  pos- 
sibility of  self-identification,  but  identity  itself.  It  is  im- 
possible, of  course,  to  picture  to  oneself  in  imagination  what 
disembodied  existence,  in  terms  of  actual  experience,  would 
be  like.  The  elimination  of  all  the  experiences  which  we 
refer  to  our  bodies — and  they  are  interwoven  even  with  our 
most  intellectual  activities  and  our  most  spiritual  moods — 
would  hardly  leave  us,  in  any  intelligible  sense,  the 
same.1 

It  may,  of  course,  be  retorted  by  some,  that  whatever  the 
evidence  for  pre-existence  or  re-incarnation  may  be,  we  do 
have  empirical  and  conclusive  evidence  both  for  the  fact 
of  survival  and  for  the  manner  of  existence  after  death. 
Taking  this  contention  at  its  best,  i.e.,  as  referring  to  such 
evidence  (communication  through  the  trance-utterances  or 
automatic  scripts  of  mediums,  materialisations,  cross-cor- 
respondence experiments,  etc.,)  as  the  Societies  for  Psychical 
Research  have  collected  and  sifted,  the  claim  to  conclusive- 
ness  appears  to  overshoot  the  mark.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  many  sitters  are  fully  convinced  of  the  identity  of  the 

1  It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  remark  that  the  teaching  of  the 
Christian  churches  gives  by  no  means  unqualified  support  to  the  notion 
of  survival  as  a  disembodied  soul.  Religious  tradition  on  the  matter 
is,  indeed,  as  confused  as  the  popular  thought  which  it  has  so  largely 
helped  to  form.  Most  of  the  tortures  of  hell,  as  painted  by  the  imagi- 
nation even  of  a  Dante,  would  have  few  terrors  for  a  disembodied 
soul.  More  to  the  point,  however,  for  our  argument,  is  the  fact  that, 
side  by  side  with  the  belief  in  discarnate  survival,  there  is  taught  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  Theologically,  this  is  important  because  it 
admits  the  body  which  is  the  principle  of  evil,  to  "  salvation  ".  Philo- 
sophically, it  seems  to  concede  that  without  the  body  the  self  is  not 
complete. 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  269 

departed  spirits  who  claim  to  be  communicating,  with,  or 
without,  the  mediation  of  a  "  control  ".  It  is  true  also  that 
many  of  the  investigators  are,  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  trained 
in  the  scientific  management  of  experiments  and  cannot 
a  priori  be  accused  of  unscientific  credulity.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  also  true  that  other  investigators,  no  less 
careful  in  method,  and  perhaps  more  cautious  in  hypothesis, 
are  far  from  convinced,  and  that  the  telepathy-hypothesis 
has  not  been  finally  disposed  of,  though  it  is  certainly  be- 
coming strained.  But  here,  again,  the  crucial  point  for 
the  establishment  of  the  "  spirit  "-hypothesis  is  the  trust-  I 
worthiness  of  the  identification.  Considering  that  among 
the  communicating  spirits  are  some  who  claim  to  be  identi- 
cal with  such  well-known  men,  recently  deceased,  as  Will- 
iam James,  or  R.  Hodgson,  or  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  it  is  perhaps 
surprising  that  it  should  be  so  difficult  to  establish  identity 
beyond  doubt.  The  mere  assertion  of  the  alleged  spirit, 
of  course,  goes  by  itself  for  nothing.  Its  truth  precisely 
is  the  thing  to  be  tested  and  established.  The  verisimilitude 
of  the  communication  (its  being  "  in  character  ")  is  liable 
to  be  very  differently  estimated  by  different  observers. 
Specific  memories  are  either  unverifiable,  and  therefore  use- 
less as  evidence,  or  verifiable,  and  thus  open  to  the  alterna- 
tive explanation  of  telepathy.  In  general,  telepathy  may 
cover  many  things  which  can  be  trustworthily  shown  not 
to  have  been  in  the  medium's  normal  knowledge.  Experi- 
ments such  as  the  attempt  to  communicate  after  death  the 
contents  of  a  sealed  message  deposited  before  death,  have 
hitherto  failed  completely.1  If,  however,  spirit-communica- 
tion is  a  fact,  it  seems  plausible  to  allow  full  weight  to  the 
contention,  often  occurring  in  the  communications,  that  the 
communicators  are  severely  handicapped  by  the  limitations 
of  the  instrument  (the  medium)  through  which  they  have  to 

1  See  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  The  Survival  of  Man,  Ch.  viii,  pp.  121  ff. 


270  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

work.1  All  in  all,  it  hardly  seems  safe  to  say  more  than 
(a)  that  a  body  of  evidence  has  been  collected  which  de- 
mands, and  fully  justifies,  further  investigation;  (b)  that 
its  proper  theoretical  interpretation  is  still  open,  the  in- 
vestigator's inclination  towards  spirits  or  telepathy  being 
in  part  determined  by  what  he  would  prefer  to  believe 
or  not  to  believe;  and  (c)  that  the  evidence,  even  when 
taken  as  favouring  the  spirit-hypothesis,  is  of  doubtful 
value  either  for  religion  or  for  the  consolation  of  the 
sorrowing  survivors.  Opinions  on  this  last  point  are 
bound  to  differ.  But,  at  any  rate,  it  seems  clear  that 
the  lover  who  cherishes  the  belief  that  his  beloved  still  lives, 
does  not  need,  nor  commonly  seek,  communications  to  sus- 
tain either  his  love  or  his  assurance.  And  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  many  men  would  really  look  forward  to  engaging 
in  this  kind  of  communication  after  their  death,  even  were 
they  convinced  that  it  were  possible.  There  is  something  in 
the  view  of  a  critic  of  one  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  books,  who 
said  that  if  Sir  Oliver's  theory  were  true,  it  would  "  add  a 
new  terror  to  death  ". 

It  must  be  admitted  that  scientific  and  philosophical  or- 
thodoxies have  alike  looked  askance  at  these  investigations 
and  the  speculative  hypotheses  they  suggest.  This  attitude 
it  is  not  possible  to  justify,  even  though  it  must  also  be  ad- 
mitted that  both  the  spirit-  and  the  telepathy-hypotheses, 
if  either  of  them  were  to  be  currently  accepted,  would 
require  wide-reaching  modifications  in  our  present  theories 
of  the  human  self.  Whilst  leaving  this  possibility  distinctly 
open,  we  shall  presently  find,  in  a  return  to  the  facts  of  self- 
consciousness  from  which,  above,  we  started  out  on  the 
examination  of  the  body-soul  theory,  a  way  to  a  more  em- 

1  In  detail,  the  evidence  is  rich  in  opportunities  for  ingenious  specula- 
tion, e.g.,  concerning  the  limitation  of  the  spirit  by  the  medium's 
imagery  and  vocabulary;  or  concerning  the  physical  appearance  of  the 
spirit  in  materialisation.  See  the  publications  of  the  Psychical  Re- 
search Societies. 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  271 

pirical  study  of  the  self — a  study  based  on  normal  introspec- 
tion and  observation  of  selves  in  the  normal  setting  and 
activities  of  ordinary  experience,  hence  free  from  the 
toils  of  the  body-soul  problem  in  its  bearing  on  the 
existence  of  the  self  before,  and  after,  its  present  embodi- 
ment. 

But  before  we  can  do  this,  we  must  glance  at  the  scientific 
arguments  for  the  distinction  between  body  and  soul.  Here 
we  can  be  brief,  for  the  situation  demands  little  more  than 
an  application  of  the  conclusions  suggested  in  the  preceding 
essay.  If  we  have  succeeded  in  purging  our  theories  thor- 
oughly of  the  Descartian  dualism,  we  are,  in  principle, 
ready  to  deal  also  with  the  psycho-physiological  dualism 
which  is  its  modern  successor.  No  doubt,  the  latter  has 
changed  with  the  fashions  of  thought  sufficiently  to  dis- 
card the  Descartian  "  substances  ",  and  put  in  their  place 
two  series  of  "  phenomena  " — a  series  of  psychical  processes 
open  only  to  introspection  (its  own?),  and  a  series  of 
physiological  processes  open  to  public  observation  like  all 
other  physical  facts.  Descartes,  fantastically  enough,  had 
made  his  two  substances  interact  through  the  pineal  gland  in 
the  brain — the  "  seat  of  the  soul  ".  Modern  theory,  acutely 
conscious  of  the  difficulties  of  this  scheme,  has  generally 
favoured  the  happy  expedient  of  a  psycho-physical,  or,  bet- 
ter, psycho-neural,  parallelism  in  a  theory  according  to 
which  mental  processes  are  correlated,  one-to-one,  with  pro- 
cesses in  the  cerebrum.  The  main  virtue  of  this  theory,  hi 
the  estimate  of  its  defenders,  has  always  been  that  it  isolates 
the  psychical  and  the  physical  series  of  phenomena  com- 
pletely from  each  other — subjects  them  to  a  theoretical 
quarantine,  as  it  were,  so  that  neither  can  infect  the  other. 
Each  series  is  regarded  as  causally  coherent  in  itself,  neither 
as  causally  related  to  the  other.  They  accompany  each 


272  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

other  by  a  blessed  miracle,  for,  on  the  theory,  it  could  not, 
and  would  not,  make  any  difference  to  either  if  the  other 
did  not  exist  at  all.  This  device  suited  the  materialistic 
temper  of  XlXth  century  science,  enabling  it  to  undertake 
the  study  of  the  physical  world  (including  living  beings) 
without  having  to  bother  about  any  thing  so  troublesome  as 
"  consciousness  ".  It  shelved  consciousness  very  effectively, 
without  exactly  saying,  "  there  is  no  such  thing  ".  It  left 
a  place  for  psychology,  at  the  price  of  condemning  it  to 
study  minds  as  if,  contrary  to  all  the  evidence,  they  were  dis- 
embodied. In  fact,  the  most  plausible  argument  for  psy- 
cho-physical parallelism  is,  perhaps,  this  that  it  is  an  in- 
genious device  for  enabling  the  physiologist  to  study  the 
bodily  machine  without  reference  to  feeling,  thought,  or 
will,  and  the  psychologist  to  study  psychical  processes  with- 
out considering  brain,  body,  or  physical  environment.  Such 
a  plea  for  confessed  abstractions  might  be  conceded.  For 
every  science  has  the  right  to  abstract  according  to  its  needs, 
and  an  abstraction,  recognised  and  acknowledged  as  such, 
becomes  theoretically  innocuous.  It  can  no  longer  be 
mistaken  for  absolute  truth.  It  is  appreciated  for  what  it 
is — a  convenient  supposition  or  makeshift. 

But  the  question,  of  course,  is  whether  it  is  really  so 
satisfactory  a  device  as  its  defenders  represent  it  to  be.  We 
have  already  noted,  in  another  context,  how  little  it  agrees 
with  the  function  assigned  to  mind  by  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion, which  furnishes  the  background  to  all  modern  natural 
science.  And  it  is  obvious  how  unworkable  parallelism  is 
as  a  basis  for  the  study  of  behaviour,  be  it  human  or  animal, 
be  it  from  the  moral,  the  legal,  or  the  purely  biological 
point  of  view.  Indeed,  the  constant  recrudescence  of  inter- 
action theories  in  some  form  or  other,  even  at  the  price  of 
harking  back  to  the  soul-substance  concept,  is  evidence 
that  the  artificiality  and  inadequacy  of  parallelism  have 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  273 

never  wholly  ceased  to  be  felt  and  proclaimed.  At  the  pres- 
ent day,  dialectician  and  experimentalist  join  in  their  attacks 
upon  it  and,  beset  from  every  quarter,  parallelism  is  fast 
losing  its  position  as  the  orthodox  scientific  formulation  of 
the  relation  of  body  and  soul.  But  it  is  not  interaction 
which  is  destined  to  supplant  it.  For  interaction,  even  if  it 
provides  for  a  much  closer  connection  between  body  and 
soul,  still  has  to  retain  the  dualistic  distinction  between 
them.  It  may  avoid  the  word  "  substance  ",  but  it  will 
effectually  retain  the  meaning,  for  else  it  cannot  intelligibly 
state  its  own  position.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  argument 
of  the  preceding  essay,  the  future  lies,  not  with  any  body- 
soul  dualism,  be  it  sharp  or  be  it  blunted,  but  with  an  ob- 
jective and  functional  theory  of  mind,  towards  which  "  be- 
haviourism "  is  leading  the  way,  especially  when  under  the 
pressure  of  its  own  ideal  of  a  full  description  of  "  what  the 
creature  is  doing  ",  it  is  steadily  being  driven,  beyond  phy- 
siological reflexes  in  response  to  immediate  sensory  stimuli, 
to  an  unbiased  study  of  the  behaviour  of  the  creature  as 
a  whole.  The  way  in  which  E.  B.  Holt,  more  particularly, 
is  employing  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole,  and  the  theor- 
ies to  which  it  leads  him,  of  the  "  recession  of  the  stimulus  " 
and  of  the  reference  of  behaviour,  not  only  to  isolated  ob- 
jects, but  to  complex  situations,  are  most  instructive.1  The 
study  of  the  self  by  way  of  self-consciousness,  i.e.,  of  expe- 
riences the  structure  of  which  is  characterised  by  the  differ- 
entiation of  self  from  not-self  (or  what-is-other-than-self), 
calls,  so  we  suggest,  for  a  synthesis  of  the  objective  and 
introspective  methods.  Introspection,  however,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  this  programme,  must  be  extended  from  the  narrow 
meaning,  in  which  it  refers  to  noticing  things  not  ordinarily 
attended  to,  like  images  or  kinaesthetic  sensations,  to  the 
wider  meaning  which  it  originally  bore  and  in  which  it  is 

1  See,  e.g.,  The  Freudian  Wish,  pp.  78. 


274  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

co-extensive  with  self-consciousness.  In  effect,  this  is  done 
in  James's  analysis  of  the  self  to  which  we  must  now 
turn. 

James  offers  his  analysis  of  the  self  as  a  study  of  the 
"  empirical  self  ",  the  "  me  "  or  "  object-self  ".  But,  it  is 
not  difficult  to  see  that,  in  effect,  his  analysis  is  a  study  of 
the  "  I  "  or  "  subject-self  "  as  well.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  study 
of  the  latter  through  the  former,  or,  to  put  bluntly  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  James,  with  sound  instinct,  proceeds  with- 
out explicitly  realising  it: — self-consciousness  means  self-j 
identification  and  self-differentiation.  If  we  refuse  to  work 
with  this  principle,  we  are  left  with  the  empty  tautology  "  I 
am  I  ".  But  the  truth  is  that,  concretely,  what  I  am  is  re- 
vealed, or  expressed,  for  me  as  well  as  for  others,  in  my  at- 
titudes and  behaviour  towards  the  world  in  which  I  exist. 
Every  such  attitude  or  behaviour,  considered  now  from  the 
point  of  view  of  self-consciousness,  is  seen  to  be  an  act  of 
identifying  myself — yes,  quite  literally  my  "  self  " — with 
something,  or  turning  myself  away  from  it.  Obviously,  this 
principle  covers  the  facts  on  which  the  body-and-soul  theory 
of  the  self  relies.  What  my  body  does,  I  do;  when  it  is 
hurt,  I  am  hurt;  when  it  dies,  I  die.  When  my  soul  is 
joyful,  I  am  joyful;  when  my  will  is  stubborn,  I  am  stub- 
born; when  my  thoughts  are  clever,  I  am  clever.  But  iden- 
tification is  meant  to  be  taken  here  in  a  further  and  less 
superficial-sense.  /  am  what  I  identify  myself  with,  in  such 
senses  as  what  I  am  interested  in,  what  I  give  myself  to, 
spend  myself  on,  even  sacrifice  myself  for,  still  feeling  my- 
self realised  in  the  very  giving.  Spending  myself,  I  may 
spend  my  money,  my  time,  my  physical  strength,  my 
thoughts,  my  knowledge — in  short,  to  be  a  self  is  to  lead 
a  life  into  the  tissue  of  which  the  world  enters  in  countless 
different  ways  and  degrees,  becoming  thus  my  world,  and 
making  me  what  I  am.  In  saying  this,  we  are  but  pushing 
a  step  further  that  dynamic  concept  of  mind,  or  soul,  sug- 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  275 

gested  in  the  preceding  essay.    A  self,  even  more  obviously  1 
than  a  mind,  is  a  unique  and  individual  focus  or  concentra- 
tion of  elements  of  the  universe. 

True,  James  does  not  explicitly  frame  his  theory  in  just 
these  words,  but  any  one  who,  with  this  clue,  will  turn  to 
James's  text,  will,  we  suggest,  find  this  principle  staring 
him  everywhere  in  the  face.  Even  the  body's  place  in  the 
self  is  "  fluctuating."  "  Our  bodies,  themselves,  are  they 
simply  ours,  or  are  they  us?  Certainly  men  have  been 
ready  to  disown  their  very  bodies  and  to  regard  them  as 
mere  vestures,  or  even  as  prisons  of  clay  from  which  they 
should  some  day  be  glad  to  escape." *  Does  not  this  throw 
a  flood  of  light  on  the  angle  from  which  the  facts,  travestied 
in  the  two-substance  theory,  should  be  approached?  That 
theory  stereotypes  one  of  the  fluctuations  in  self-conscious- 
ness, and  exaggerates  it,  first,  into  a  standing  antithesis  of 
factors  in  the  self,  and,  next,  breaks  the  living  self  into  two 
disparate  metaphysical  figments.  "  We  are  dealing  with  a 
fluctuating  material,  the  same  object  being  sometimes  treated 
as  a  part  of  me,  at  other  times  as  simply  mine,  and  then 
again  as  if  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it  at  all.  In  its  widest 
possible  sense,  however,  a  man's  self  is  the  sum  total  of  all* 
that  he  can  call  his,  not  only  his  body  and  his  psychic 
powers,  but  his  clothes  and  his  house,  his  wife  and  children, 
his  ancestors  and  friends,  his  reputation  and  works,  his  lands 
and  horses,  his  yacht  and  bank-account."  2  And  then  fol- 
lows the  principle,  as  near  as  James  in  explicit  statement 
comes  to  it:  "  All  these  things  give  him  the  same  emotions.' 
If  they  wax  and  prosper,  he  feels  triumphant;  if  they 
dwindle  and  die  away,  he  feels  cast  down."  There  is  no 
need  to  recapitulate  the  details  of  an  analysis,  so  well-known, 
so  deservedly  famous,  carried  through  with  such  wealth  of 
illustration  and  insight.  One  may  not  think  the  classifica- 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  Ch.  x,  p.  291. 

2  Ibidem.    James's  italics. 


276  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

tion  of  the  "  constituents  "  of  the  self  as  (a)  the  material 
self,  (b)  the  social  self,  (c)  the  spiritual  self,  (d)  the  pure 
ego,  very  happy,  the  last  rubric  especially  not  being  on  a 
level  with  the  others,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the 
masterly  handling  of  such  topics  as  self-feelings;  self-seeking 
and  self-love;  the  rivalry  and  conflict  of  Mes;  the  hierarchy 
of  Mes,  i.e.,  the  need  for  some  organisation  or  order  among 
the  fluctuating  constituents  of  the  self  according  to  their 
worth.  It  will  suffice  to  set  down  a  few  passages,  picked 
almost  at  random,  to  show  the  principle  everywhere  at  work 
in  James's  analysis. 

"  We  so  appropriate  our  clothes  and  identify  ourselves 
with  them  that  there  are  few  of  us  who,  if  asked  to  choose 
between  having  a  beautiful  body  clad  in  raiment  perpetually 
shabby  and  unclean,  and  having  an  ugly  and  blemished  form 
always  spotlessly  attired,  would  not  hesitate  a  moment  be- 
fore making  a  decisive  reply."  x  "  When  they  [our  rela- 
tives] die,  a  part  of  our  very  selves  is  gone.  If  they  do 
anything  wrong,  it  is  our  shame.  If  they  are  insulted,  our 
anger  flashes  forth  as  readily  as  if  we  stood  in  their  place  ".2 
"  The  parts  of  our  wealth  most  intimately  ours  are  those 
which  are  saturated  with  our  labour.  There  are  few  men 
who  would  not  feel  personally  annihilated  if  a  life-long  con- 
construction  of  their  hands  or  brains — say  an  entomological 
collection  or  an  extensive  work  in  manuscript — were  sud- 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  292. 

2  Ibidem.     During  the  campaign  for  the  first  liberty  loan  a  Boston 
newspaper  published  a  whole  page  appeal  from  which  I  quote  a  few 
phrases.   "  This  is  your  war,  your  Congress  has  declared  war   upon 
Germany.    Wake  up  to  that,  Mr.  Citizen.  .   .   .  You  go  home  and  think 
over  your  relationship  to  your  government.     You  will  find  that  you 
cannot  separate  yourself  from  the  State.     You  will  find  that  you  and 
your  government   are   identical.     When   the   government,   which   you 
created,  declares  war,  you  declare  war.    And  you  are  obligated  to  do 
your  part.   .    .    ."  (Boston  American,  June  11,  1917).     This  is  sound 
philosophy  in  a  place  where  it  is  unusual  to  find  any  philosophy  what- 
ever. 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  277 

denly  swept  away." *  Loss  of  possessions  brings  "  a  sense 
of  the  shrinkage  of  our  personality,  a  partial  conversion  of 
ourselves  to  nothingness."  2  "  We  do  not  show  ourselves  to 
our  children  as  to  our  club-companions,  to  our  customers 
as  to  the  labourers  we  employ,  to  our  own  masters  and 
employers  as  to  our  intimate  friends."  3  Further  on,  under 
the  heading  of  "  self-love  ",  we  read:  "  To  have  a  self  that 
I  can  care  for,  nature  must  first  present  me  with  some 
object  interesting  enough  to  make  me  instinctively  wish  to 
appropriate  it  for  its  own  sake,  and  out  of  it  to  manufacture 
one  of  those  material,  social,  or  spiritual  selves,  which  we 
have  already  passed  in  review."  *  And,  then,  comes  another 
attempt  at  the  principle:  "  The  words  ME,  then,  and 
SELF,  so  far  as  they  arouse  feeling  and  connote  emotional 
worth,  are  OBJECTIVE  designations,  meaning  ALL  THE 
THINGS  which  have  the  power  to  produce  in  a  stream  of 
consciousness  excitement  of  a  certain  peculiar  sort." 5  A 
page  or  two  further  on  James  concludes  that  the  self  in 
"  self-love  "  is  never  the  pure  ego,  the  abstract  principle  of 
conscious  identity.  It  is  "  simply  my  total  empirical  self- 
hood again,  my  historic  Me,  a  collection  of  objective  facts." 8 
Why,  for  example,  do  I  claim  respect  and  resent  disdain?? 
"  It  is  not  as  being  a  bare  7  that  claim  it;  it  is  as  being  an  I 
who  has  always  been  treated  with  respect,  who  belongs  to  a 
certain  family  and  "  set ",  who  has  certain  powers,  pos- 
sessions, and  public  functions,  sensibilities,  duties,  and  pur- 
poses, and  merits  and  deserts." 7  In  almost  so  many  words, 
James  finally  declares  that  the  self  is  co-extensive  with  the 
range  of  things  in  which  it  takes  an  interest,  which  elicit  its 
feelings,  determine  its  conduct.  Nor  ought  we  to  forget  in 
this  brief  survey  the  startling  pages  8  in  which  James  ex- 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  293.  6  Loc.  cit.,  p.  322. 

2  Ibidem.  7  Ibidem. 

8  Loc.  cit.,  p.  294.  8  Loc.  cit.,  pp.  295-305. 

4  Loc.  cit.,  p.  319 ;  James's  italics. 

5  Loc.  cit.,  p.  319;  James's  italics. 


278  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

plores  the  innermost  "  self  of  selves  "  and  finds  it  to  con- 
sist of  "  a  collection  of  (feelings  of)  motions  in  the  head  of 
between  the  head  and  throat."1  They  are  the  relatively 
permanent  core  or  nucleus  of  what  each  is  conscious  of  as  his 
self.  This  both  assigns  a  central  position  in  the  self  to  the 
body,  and  traverses  all  attempts  to  cut  the  self  into  body 
and  soul  and  identify  it  essentially  with  the  latter,  divorced, 
or  at  least  divorcible,  from  the  former. 

The  principle,  then,  on  which  James's  analysis  explicitly 
or  implicitly  rests,  appears  to  be  perfectly  sound.  Change 

i  my  world  and  you  change  me.  Introduce  fresh  objects 
into  my  experience  and  I  become  a  being  of  new  feelings, 
thoughts,  actions.  Everything  is,  or  becomes,  a  constituent 
of  me  in  which  I  am  positively  or  negatively  interested,  so 
that  my  feelings  are  coloured  by  it,  my  thoughts  are  occu- 
pied with  it,  my  actions  directed  towards  it — technically 
put,  so  that  all  these  are  a  function  of  it.  Or,  as  we  put  it 
above,  each  self  is  a  unique  focus  or  concentration  of  ele- 
ments in  the  universe,  entering  into  it,  occupying  it,  making 
it  in  varying  degrees  what  it  is.  And  as  we  found  James 
incidentally  recognising,  there  is  no  giving  any  account 

/of  the  "  I  "  apart  from  the  "  Me  ".  Vain  is  the  attempt 
to  seize  and  inspect  the  subject-self  as  distinct  from  the 
object-self.  For  "  I  "  am  what "  my  "  interests  make  "  me," 
every  interest  being  an  identification  of  "  my  self  "  with  some 
object  in  the  world  of  my  experience  of  which  my  body  is 
the  centre.  The  identity  of  the  subject-self,  to  borrow 
James's  apt  phrase,  is  not  substantial,  but  functional. 

Recent  philosophical  literature  appears  to  show  only 
one  serious  challenge  to  this  analysis  from  the  same  basis 
of  introspection,  or  rather  self-consciousness.  This  is  to 
be  found  in  Professor  John  Laird's  Problems  of  the  Self.3 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  301 ;  James's  italics. 

2  See  especially  chs.  ii,  iii,  xiii. 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  279 

Laird  tries  to  show  that  the  body  is  not  part  of  the  self, 
that  the  self  is  essentially  soul,  and  that  the  soul,  being  a 
"  unity  of  experiences  ",  may  be  called  a  "  psychical  sub- 
stance ".  The  theory  is  built  on  the  analysis  of  every 
experience  into  an  object  and  a  mental  act,  the  latter  term 
covering  feeling,  volition  and  cognition.  If  this  be  granted, 
the  principle  may  be  laid  down  that  objects  are  for  the  self, 
experiences  are  of  it.  The  "  being  ",  as  Laird  likes  to  say, 
of  all  experiences  is  to  refer  to  objects.  This  reference 
to  objects  is  for  him  "  the  only  common  characteristic  of 
that  which  is  psychical." 1  It  follows  at  once  that  the  body, 
as  object,  is  for,  not  of,  the  self;  an  argument  which  Laird 
supports  by  polemic  against  the  James-Lange  theory  of  emo- 
tion, on  the  ground  that  it  mistakes  bodily  sensations,  i.e., 
the  objective  data  to  which  the  internal  sense  refers,  for 
the  apprehension  of  them.  The  latter  alone  is  psychical  and 
forms  part  of  the  self;  the  former  are  part  of  the  body, 
which  is  the  self's  most  constant  object  and,  in  a  sense,  also 
its  instrument. 

The  argument,  of  course,  collapses  if  the  initial  analysis 
of  experience  into  object  and  act  be  denied,  by  which  alone 
Laird  is  able  to  evade  the  full  force  of  James's  theory. 
Now  this  analysis  has  been,  and  reasonably  can  be,  denied.2 
But  it  is  even  more  instructive  to  notice  how  close,  pressed 
by  the  logic  of  the  facts,  Laird  comes  to  admitting  James's 
analysis.  "  Are  the  men  whose  lives  radiate  out  towards 
other  things  and  other  persons  less  really  selves  than  those 
who  try  to  shrink  into  some  unapproachable  crevice  of 
private  being?  Surely  the  facts  are  otherwise.  To  under- 
stand the  self  it  is  best  to  go  outside  it  and  consider  its 
influence  and  the  range  of  things  which  it  contemplates." 8 

1  Problems  of  the  Self,  p.  33. 

2  It  is  denied,  e.g.,  by  many  American  neo-realists,  see  preceeding 
essay,  pp.  229-31. 

3  Loc.  cit.,  p.  94. 


28o  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

"  The  mind  grows  as  the  objects  revealed  to  it  grow.  It  is 
not  more  of  a  unity  than  what  it  knows,  nor  is  it  less  of  a 
unity.  It  does  not  overlap  its  object  but  is  co-extensive  with 
that  object."  *  "  An  experience  is  a  reference  to  an  object 
...  it  varies  as  the  object  varies,  and  to  define  it  or  to 
think  of  it,  without  reference  to  its  specific  object  is  plainly 
impossible.  .  .  .  Our  private  experience  shows  itself  in  the 
things  and  events  to  which  it  refers.  These  things  and 
events  are  not  ourselves,  though  we  would  not  be  ourselves 
unless  our  experiences  were  directed  to  them." 2  In  such 
passages  as  these  Laird,  almost  against  his  will,  becomes  a 
witness  to  the  necessity  of  the  view  which  his  explicit  theory 
compels  him  to  reject. 

(2)  From  the  constituents  of  the  Self  we  must  pass  to 
the  vexing  problem  of  personal  identity. 

Here,  again,  James's  masterly  commonsense  shines  like 
a  bright  beacon-light  through  the  fog  of  dialectics.  We  can- 
not do  better  than  gain  a  starting-point  for  discussion  by 
quoting  him:  "This  consciousness  of  personal  sameness 
may  be  treated  either  as  a  subjective  phenomenon  or  as 
an  objective  deliverance,  as  a  feeling,  or  as  a  truth.  We 
may  explain  how  one  bit  of  thought  can  come  to  judge  other 
bits  to  belong  to  the  same  Ego  with  itself;  or  we  may 
criticise  its  judgment  and  decide  how  far  it  may  tally  with 
the  nature  of  things."3  This  puts  the  problem  fairly  and 
squarely.  The  "  fact "  of  identity  is  to  be  examined  by 
tracing  the  judgment  of  self-identity  to  its  grounds;  by 
exhibiting  the  factors  in  experience  on  which  it  rests. 
James  is  right,  too,  when  he  goes  on  to  declare  that  "  There 
is  nothing  more  remarkable  in  making  a  judgment  of  same- 
ness in  the  first  person  than  in  the  second  or  third," 4  and 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  223.  2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  247. 

3  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  p.  331.          4  Ibidem. 


Ch.  IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  281 

that,  in  fact,  the  judgment  of  self-identity  is  but  a  special 
case  of  the  judgment  of  identity  in  general. 

This  gives  us  the  clue  for  our  argument.  Like  all 
judgments,  identity- judgments  may  be  true  or  false.  With  . 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  any  particular  judgment  in  a  given 
case  we  are  not  concerned.  But  we  are  concerned  with 
analysing  in  general  the  conditions  under  which  true) 
identity-judgments  may  be  arrived  at.  There  are  two  plati- 
tudes which  commonly  loom  large  in  discussions  of  this 
problem,  but  which  do  not  advance  the  argument  at  all. 
One  tells  us  that  the  judgment,  x  is  identical  with  y,  is 
true  when  there  exists  a  "  fact ",  the  identity  of  x  and  y. 
But  what  we  want  is  something  more  than  to  be  told  that  a 
judgment  is  true  if  a  corresponding  fact  exists,  and  false  if 
the  fact  does  not  exist.  We  want  to  find  out  what  the  em- 
pirical evidence  is  on  which  in  identity-judgments  we  rely, 
and  what  logical  right  we  have  to  rely  on  it.  We  want  to  be 
shown  how  the  identity  of  anything  with  anything  else,  e.g., 
of  my  self  of  to-day  with  myself  of  yesterday,  is  actually 
experienced.  The  other  platitude,  with  a  reminder  of  the 
school-boy's  knife  which  is  still  the  "  same  "  in  spite  of  a 
new  handle  and  new  blades,  tells  us  that  identity  is  a  wholly 
relative  and  arbitrary  matter,  that  it  "  depends  on  the 
point  of  view  ".  But  the  answer  here  is  that  some  points 
of  view  are  much  more  fundamental  than  others,  and  that 
in  an  orderly  universe  certain  types  of  identity  are  so 
prominent  as  to  demand,  and  receive,  universal  recogni- 
tion. 

This  leaves  us  with  two  questions  to  discuss.    The  first 
concerns  the  fundamental  logical  issue  whether  a  judgment 
which  affirms  that  two  differents  are  identical  can  ever  be< 
true  at  all.1    The  second  has  to  be  answered  by  setting  out 

1  Cf.  the  phrases  used  above,  "  identity  of  anything  with  anything 
else";  "identity  of  x  and  y." 


282  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

the  empirical  factors  which  enter  into  judgments  of  identity, 
and  more  particularly  of  self-identity. 

As  it  happens,  there  is  an  empirical  fact  through  which 
we  are  all  made  familiar  with  our  first,  the  logical,  issue. 
iThis  fact  is  the  fact  of  change.  For  anything  to  change 
is  for  it  to  become  different  and  yet  to  remain  the  same. 
"  It  "  becomes  other  than  it  was,  and  yet  is  still  "  it ".  The 
.dialectics  here  possible  have  been  explored  almost  from  the 
dawn  of  philosophy — our  bare  allusion  to  them  will  suffice 
to  recall  them.  But  the  difficulty  cuts  very  deep.  When 
we  probe  it  to  the  bottom,  we  are  brought  up  against  noth- 
,ing  less  than  the  question,  whether  judgments  conforming 
to  the  standards  of  consistent  thinking  can  be  made  concern- 
ing the  empirical  world  at  all — or  whether  there  is  a  funda- 
mental gap  between  the  data  of  experience  and  the  logical 
realm  of  pure  reason.  Can  we,  in  short,  discover  in  the 
empirical  world  a  rational  system  or  can  we  not? 

Now  when  the  problem  is  brought  home  to  us  through 
the  experience  of  change,  there  is  an  undoubted  temptation 
to  cut  the  knot  by  saying  that  only  the  absolutely  unchang- 
ing can  be,  and  be  judged  to  be,  identical  with  itself.  And 
when  we  follow  up  this  notion,  we  are,  by  the  same  logic, 
driven  on  to  the  conclusion  that  nothing  but  the  absolutely 
simple,  homogeneous,  unrelated,  can  satisfy  this  prescrip- 
tion. But  when  we  try  to  apply  this  concept  to  empirical 
objects,  there  appears  nothing  in  the  whole  "  choir  of  heaven 
and  furniture  of  the  earth  ",  from  our  "  selves  "  down  to 
the  grains  of  sand  on  the  shore,  which  is  thus  simple,  homo- 
geneous, unrelated,  unchanging.  This  is  certainly  true  of 
f:he  self.  We  have  seen  how  its  constituents  are  fluctuating.  I 
Stability,  no  doubt,  it  has,  but  it  is  a  dynamic  stability,  a 
self-maintenance  in  change,  responding  differently  to  dif- 
ferent situations.  But  this  is  precisely  the  concept  which, 
on  the  principles  of  the  identity-logic,  we  must  at  all  costs 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  283 

eschew.  Even  on  the  body-and-soul  theory  no  simple,  self- 
identical  kernel  for  the  self  can  be  found.  Consider  the 
body's  mobility;  its  modifications  from  infancy  to  old  age; 
its  decomposition  after  death;  its  constant  metabolism. 
There  is  nothing  in  it  on  which  we  can  lay  a  finger  and  say, 
"  Though  all  the  rest  change,  this  is  now  what  it  always 
was  and  ever  will  be."  The  same  result,  no  less  obviously, 
is  yielded  by  an  analysis  of  the  stream  of  consciousness. 
Hume  has  settled  that,  once  and  for  all.  It  avails  nothing 
here  to  plead  that  surely  it  is  possible  to  have  the  same 
thought  twice.  The  answer  is,  the  second  thought  is  an- 
other thought,1  similar  perhaps  to  the  first,  but  not  the  same. 
Repetition  yields  similars,  not  identities.  By  this  logic,  as 
Hume  clearly  saw,  there  is  no  justifying  any  empirical  judg- 
ment for,  in  some  way  or  another,  they  all  assert  an  identity 
between  differences.  Yet  for  all  that  this  logic  tells  us  that 
no  two  experiences  can  possibly  be  more  than  similar,  we 
identify  them  by  saying  that  it  is  the  "  same  "  object  we 
experience  on  both  occasions,  and  the  "  same  "  self,  too, 
which  experiences.  The  issue  is  clear.  On  the  logic  of  I 
abstract  identity,  of  the  principle  that  identity  is  identity, 
and  difference  is  difference,  and  never  the  twain  shall  meet, 
all  the  thinking  embodied  in  judgments  about  empirical  mat- 
ters of  fact,  is  fundamentally  inconsistent  and  illogical. 
Every  empirical  judgment  is  a  slap  in  the  face  of  the  law 
of  contradiction,  an  offence  against  reason.  Either  this, 

or ? 

Well,  the  alternative  is  another  sort  of  logic.  The  con- 
sequences of  the  identity-logic  are  plainly  devastating  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  in  the  field  of  pure  mathematics.  As  measured 
by  its  standards,  the  whole  body  of  natural  sciences,  con- 
sisting as  it  does  of  statements  of  empirical  matters  of  fact, 
requires  to  be  either  condemned  or  re-interpreted  out  of  all 

1  Cf.  also  W.  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  p.  480. 


284  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

recognition.  Or,  else,  we  must  explore  the  possibility  of 
framing  a  logical  theory  which  starts  from  the  hypothesis 
that  scientific  judgments  are  rational,  and  makes  it  its  busi- 
ness to  formulate  the  standards  actually  used,  and  recog- 
nisable in  them.  In  other  words,  we  must  adopt  a  logic  of 
identity  in  difference,  or  of  concrete  universals.  This  is  the 
substance  of  Kant's  reply  to  Hume.  Its  principle  is  to  treat 
every  judgment  concerning  empirical  facts  as  a  "  synthesis  " 
of  different  data.  Synthesis  means  identification;  and  every 
identification  rests  on  a  universal  (or  "category").  In 
other  words,  it  recognises,  or  acknowledges,  an  identity  in 
difference.1  In  detail,  judgments  may  be  mistaken.  But 
the  judgment-function  as  such  cannot  be  mistaken.  We 
have  no  basis  outside  of  it  from  which  to  criticise  it.  We 
can  but  trust  it,  as  we  do,  both  in  practical  life  and  in 
science;  and,  in  philosophy,  too,  which  is  capable  of  endors- 
ing this  confidence  against  sceptical  doubts.  On  this  logic, 
which  is  the  logic  on  which  throughout  these  essays  we  have 
taken  our  stand,  judgments  of  identity,  i.e.,  judgments  iden- 
tifying bond  fide  differences  as  elements  in  some  form  of 
universal,  cannot  be  challenged  as  a  class.  A  given  judg- 
ment may  be  a  case  of  "  mistaken  identity  ",  but  the  recog- 
nition of  identities  in  the  multiplicity  of  empirical  differ- 
ences is  of  the  very  essence  of  that  advance  in  knowledge, 
which  reveals  the  universe  progressively  as  an  orderly  and 
rational  system.2  Physical  "  things  "  and  "  selves  "  are  such 
identities,  or  universals,  though  they  stand  on  different  levels 
in  the  order  of  the  universe,  and  differ  in  the  way  in  which 


1  That    Kant    made    the    categories    "  subjective ",    by   calling   them 
"  forms  of  the  human  understanding  "  was,  no  doubt,  a  mistake.    They 
belong  to  the  "objective"  structure  of  the  universe,  acknowledged  in 
judgments. 

2  William  James's  struggles  with  the  logic  of  abstract  identity,  and 
his  revolt  against  it,  though  it  took  him  to   Bergson  rather  than  to 
Hegel,    will   always    remain    instructive    for    students    of    philosophy. 
Cf.  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  Lectures  III,  V,  VI,  VII. 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  285 

they  appear,  and  come  to  be  recognised,  in  experience.  But 
there  is,  on  the  identity-in-difference  logic,  nothing  illogical 
or  irrational  in  the  judgments  which,  following  empirical 
clues,  identify  "  this  "  and  "  that  "  as  the  "  same  ".  "  I  am 
I  "  must,  in  principle,  admit  into  itself  both  "  I  am  this  " 
and  "  I  am  that  ",  provided  a  distinction  is  introduced  which 
prevents  "  this  "  and  "  that "  from  conflicting  with  each 
other.  I  cannot  be  both  well  and  ill  at  the  same  time,  but 
I  who  am  well  to-day  may  be  ill  to-morrow,  and  truly 
judge  that  both  conditions  belong  to  "  one  and  the 
same  "  Me. 

So  much  for  the  principle.  It  remains  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  evidence,  on  the  "  experience  "  of  identity.  James's 
analysis  makes  identity  a  conclusion  from  "  resemblance  " 
and  "  continuity  'V  This  clearly  will  not  do.  Similarity  is 
precisely  not  identity.  We  need  two  distinct  things,  two 
particulars,  in  order  to  have  similarity.  We  need  only  one, 
though  this  one  capable  of  existing  in  different  contexts  and 
of  undergoing  change,  in  order  to  have  identity.  One  self 
may  be  called  similar  to  another  in  so  far  as  both  are  selves, 
i.e.,  members  of  the  class  "  self."  But  a  self  is  not  similar  to 
itself,  for  it  is  not  a  class  of  similar  members  at  all — Rus- 
sell's attempt  to  uphold  the  contrary  notwithstanding.2 
Again,  continuity  will  not  do  any  more  than  similarity, 
partly  because  it  would  only  be  available  as  evidence  in  the 
form  of  memory,  and  memory  is  both  fragmentary  and 
fallible,  partly  because,  in  any  case,  experience  suffers  recur- 
rent interruptions  in  sleep,  so  that  at  best  continuity  would 
not  supply  evidence  for  identity  during  more  than  a  single 
stretch  of  working  hours.  In  what,  then,  does  the  experience 
of  identity  actually  consist?  What  is  the  evidence  on  which 
the  judgment  of  identity  rests?  "  Just  as  the  concept  blue  ", 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.  i,  ch.  x,  p.  334. 

2  Principles   of  Mathematics,   Appendix    B,   §  497,   "  a   person   is   a 
class  of  psychical  existents." 


286  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

writes  Professor  De  Witt  Parker,  "  has  been  derived  from 
blue  experiences,  and  so  must  apply  to  the  like,  so  the 
meaning  of  identity  has  been  acquired  as  a  reflex  of  personal 
identity  experiences.  It  means,  aboriginally,  a  certain 
feature  of  experience  and  so  must  be  true  of  it." l  The  ex-j 
perience  of  identity,  Professor  Parker  goes  on  to  argue,  is 
given  by  the  recurrence  of  what  is  actually  the  same  experi- 
ence on  successive  occasions.  This,  as  he  clearly  recognises, 
is  possible  only  if  we  are  prepared  to  abandon  the  prevail- 
ing Humian  view  that  one  and  the  same  experience  can 
never  be  repeated,  that  experiences  are  fugitive,  and  that 
so-called  repetition  must  refer  to  a  second,  similar,  experi- 
ence.2 Are  there  instances,  then,  of  the  same  experiences 
recurring?  Parker  instances  the  use  of  the  same  concept  on 
different  occasions,  the  concept  even  being  modified  and  en- 
riched by  the  fresh  cases  to  which  it  is  applied;  the  per- 
sistence of  the  same  interests  in  the  individual's  life;  the 
carrying  out  of  the  same  plan  through  varied  activities 
extending,  it  may  be,  over  a  long  period  of  time;3  the  recur- 
rence of  the  same  imagery.  These  illustrations,  undoubt- 
edly, supply  the  kind  of  identity  which  is  wanted,  but  they 
hardly  quite  bear  out  Parker's  programme  of  showing  that 
the  same  "  experiences  "  (as  distinct  from  experiences  of  the 
same  "  objects  ")  recur.  Perhaps  our  difficulty  is  merely 
verbal.  But  "  experience  ",  especially  when  thus  set  over 
against  "  object ",  suggests  an  act  or  event,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  anything  into  which  time  enters  so  essentially  as 
it  does  into  acts  and  events,  can  be  "  one  and  the  same  "  on 
diverse  occasions.  The  clue  to  the  correct  analysis  of  iden- 

1  The  Self  and  Nature,  p.  43. 

2  The  discussion  of  Personal  Identity  in  Professor  Parker's  Self  and 
Nature  (Ch.  ii)   seems  to  me  the  best  in  current  literature,  and  I  am 
glad  to  acknowledge  here  how  much  I  owe  to  it. 

3  Cf.  my  paper  on  The  Analysis  of  Volition  in  Proceedings  of  the 
Aristotelian   Society,  vol.   xii    (1912-13),   p.    156 ff.,   where   the   same 
point  is  made. 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  287 

tity  would  seem  to  be  suggested  rather  by  some  such  pas- 
sage as  this:  "  The  universal,  as  possessed  by  the  mind,  is 
essentially  a  system  or  habit  of  self-adjusting  response  or 
reaction,  whether  automatic  or  in  thought,  over  a  certain 
range  of  stimulation.  An  acquired  skill,  such  as  that  of  a 
cricketer,  is  a  good  example."  *  Considered  as  acts,  the 
cricketer's  strokes  are  merely  similar,  or  of  the  same  kind, 
for  balls  of  the  same  kind,  but  his  skill  in  dealing  with  each 
ball  appropriately  according  to  its  kind  is  identical,  as  a 
system  or  motor-set  for  producing  acts  adjusted  to  their  occa- 
sions. It  is  a  universal,  and  a  concrete  one;  an  existing  and 
embodied  individual  system,  not  a  mere  class.  In  the  same 
way  every  habit  secures  identity,  or,  at  a  higher  level,  every 
principle  of  conduct  or  judgment  which  the  self  applies 
whenever  occasion  arises.  It  is  clear  that  Parker's  ex- 
amples, the  concept,  the  interest,  the  plan,  are  identities  in 
this  sense.  They  are  not  recurrent  events;  they  are  growing 
and  modifiable  systems  of  response,  issuing  in  action  on 
successive  occasions. 

From  this  point  of  view,  too,  we  can  interpret  the  doc- 
trine that  identity  is  a  matter  of  degree — that  a  man  is 
sometimes  more  himself,  sometimes  less;  sometimes  at  his 
best,  sometimes  below  it.  It  depends  how  much  of  the 
organised  self,  considered  as  a  complex  system  of  responses, 
comes  into  play.  In  this  sense  Parker  can  rightly  say  that 
the  amount  of  identity  is  "  great  when  a  man  puts  all  his 
emotional  energy  into  some  task  which  requires  the  use  of 
his  whole  past  experience,  the  total  resources  of  his  memory 
and  learning;  then,  as  we  say,  he  is  most  himself;  it  is  little 
when,  in  a  light  moment  of  gaiety,  he  forgets  himself,  feed- 
ing on  new  impressions.  It  is  great  again  in  constancy  and 
continuity  of  work  and  affection,  and  less  in  disloyalties 
and  infidelities."2 

1  B.  Bosanquet,  Principle  of  Individuality  and  Value,  p.  40.  note. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  p.  50. 


288  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS          [Ch.  IX 

(3)  Having  tried  to  argue  that  the  consciousness,  and 
judgment,  of  self-identity,  so  far  from  excluding  differences 
within  the  self,  consist  in  their  identification,  or  synthesis, 
we  are  free  to  bring  our  discussion  of  the  self  to  a  con- 
clusion with  a  consideration  of  the  way  in  which  the  fluctua- 
tions of  the  self  are  influenced  by  its  relations  to  other 
selves. 

How  far  is  a  contrast,  varying  from  mere  difference  or 
otherness  to  hostility,  between  self  and  not-self  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  self-consciousness  and,  therefore,  of  self- 
knowledge? 

It  is  worth  observing,  in  the  first  place,  that  a  man's  self 
is,  in  the  main,  not  of  his  own  making,  nor,  for  that  matter, 
was  it  consciously  planned,  such  as  it  is,  by  any  other  human 
being.  A  man's  self,  however  much  in  detail  it  may  have 
been  deliberately  shaped  and  moulded  by  his  own  will  and 
purpose  or  that  of  others,  is  yet,  in  the  main,  a  thing  of 
natural  growth — in  origin  and  development  quite  literally 
the  product  of  forces  largely  beyond  our  control,  if  not  be- 
yond our  present  comprehension.  Even  when  a  man  can  be 
said  to  have  been  deliberately  begotten  by  his  parents 
(which  is  hardly  the  rule),  they  certainly  had  no  provision 
or  intention  that  he  should  be  just  the  person  he  turns  out  to 
be.  Not  even  the  sex  of  the  child  is  under  the  control  of 
the  parents'  will,  nor  how  much  of  their  qualities,  physical 
or  mental,  he  inherits.  After  birth,  deliberate  training  does 
much  to  mould  the  self,  but  in  its  response  to,  and  absorp- 
tion of,  educational  and  environmental  influences,  it  still  is 
always  growing  into  a  unique  personality,  the  pattern  of 
whose  intellectual  and  moral  character  no  general  formula 
enables  us  wholly  to  forecast.  In  fact,  every  man  has  to 
learn,  and  discover  by  experience,  what  is  the  nature  of  his 
own  self,  just  as  his  parents  and  fellows  have  got  to  dis- 
cover it.  It  is  a  plain  fact  of  everyday  life  that  men  are 


Ch.IX]  SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  289 

full  of  surprises  and  revelations,  not  only  to  others,  but  to 
themselves.  Every  man  has  to  find  out,  largely  by  trial  and 
error,  what  are  his  capacities,  physical  and  intellectual,  and 
what  their  limits;  what  is  his  temper,  and  how  to  control  it; 
what  is  his  strength  and  his  weakness;  to  what  temptations 
he  had  better  not  expose  himself,  and  what  tasks  he  may 
confidently  attempt.  Moreover,  this  kind  of  self-knowledge, 
acquired  in  familiar  routine  situations,  is  liable  to  be  upset 
by  exceptional  crises  which  may,  for  good  or  evil,  reveal 
hidden  depths,  astonishing  or  shocking,  not  only  onlookers, 
but  the  agent  himself.  Great  excitement  may  put  a  man 
"  beside  himself,"  and  in  this  condition  he  may  rise  far 
above,  or  fall  far  below,  his  "  normal "  self.  Thus  the 
self  is  plastic  within  wide  limits.  It  is  made  what  it  is  in 
part  by  the  influences  which  press  upon  it.  It  is  also  in  part 
made  by  itself — made,  one  is  tempted  to  say,  by  what  it 
succeeds  in  making  out  of  its  given  endowment  and  all  the 
shaping  forces  of  education  and  circumstance  in  response  to 
which  it  grows  to  its  stature.  As  always,  we  find  the  self 
double-edged — self-made  and  world-made. 

The  same  conclusion  may  be  confirmed  by  another  line  of 
reflection.  One's  experiences  are  one's  own:  on  any  view 
they  are  of  the  very  tissue  of  the  self.  Yet,  if  calling  them 
one's  own  means  that  one  is  somehow  their  source  and 
author,  that  they  are  the  product  of  one's  activity,  it  soon 
appears  that  in  this  sense  the  self  has  very  little  claim  to 
them.  Of  sense-experiences  this  is  commonly  acknowledged. 
They  are  given  to  us.  They  come  unsought.  They  even 
force  themselves  upon  us.  To  them  we  are  passive,  as  com- 
pared with  our  activity  in  thinking.  For  our  thoughts  are, 
as  commonly,  considered  to  be  of  our  own  making,  or  at 
least  under  our  control,  obedient  to  our  will.  Yet  is  it  not 
true  that,  fundamentally,  thoughts  come  to  us,  are  given  to 
us,  happen  to  us  as  much  as  sense-experiences  or  feelings? 


2QO  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

In  the  striking  German  phrase,  Sie  fallen  uns  ein.  If  we 
did  not  reserve  the  term  "  inspirations  "  for  exceptionally 
striking  and  novel  thoughts,  we  might  fairly  apply  it  to  all 
thoughts  whatever.  Indeed,  it  is  in  many  ways  easier  to 
control  one's  sense-perceptions  than  one's  thoughts.  I  can 
move  out  of  hearing  of  a  disturbing  noise,  but  I  cannot  so 
easily  shake  off  a  haunting  memory.  In  a  familiar  environ- 
ment I  can  largely,  by  suitable  movements,  determine  what 
I  shall  see,  hear,  feel,  and  taste,  but  thought  is  proverbially 
like  the  wind  which  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  Even  volun- 
tary thinking  is  no  exception.  I  may  set  myself,  as  now,  to 
meditate  on  the  Self,  but  I  cannot  choose  or  determine  be- 
forehand what  thoughts  shall  come  to  me,  or  whether  they 
shall  be  of  any  value.  Volition  can  do  little  more  than  set 
the  stage,  but  the  right  actors  may  capriciously  refuse  to 
appear.  I  may  in  vain  strive  to  recapture  yesterday's  bril- 
liant idea.  Any  name  but  the  one  I  want  to  recollect  may 
occur  to  me.  Nay,  the  very  fact  that  my  will  is  what  it  is, 
is  ultimately  not  my  doing,  but  an  expression  of  my  nature, 
such  as  it  is,  reacting  on  my  world,  such  as  I  find  it.  Again, 
I  (i.e.,  all  that  I  am  and  say  and  do)  radiate  effects  in  all 
directions,  few  of  which  I  intend,  of  most  of  which  I  am 
unaware,  and  none  of  which  I  can  follow  beyond  a  short 
distance.  Every  self  is  inextricably  interwoven  with  the 
tissue  of  its  world  in  all  its  variations  and  fluctuations. 

And  so  again  the  greater  purposes  and  achievements  of 
this  world  in  which  I  interest  myself  and  with  which  I  iden- 
tify myself,  are  not  of  my  making  or  of  that  of  any  other 
single  man.  The  things  in  which  many  minds,  and  many 
successive  generations  of  minds,  cooperate — states  and 
churches;  sciences,  arts,  philosophies — these  grow  in  and 
through  human  minds,  yet  as  by  an  impulsion  of  their  own. 
Men's  minds  are  the  organs  of  growth  for  them — very 
literally  "  organs  ",  through  which,  we  may  boldly  say,  the 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  291 

universe  is  working.  The  organ's  "  own  "  will  and  wisdom 
count  in  the  result  only  so  far  as  they  express,  or  are  a 
function  of,  the  forces  of  the  universe.  It  is,  indeed,  the 
fashion  to  speak  of  these  things  as  man-made.  But  if 
"  made  "  means  designed  by  men  just  so,  this  way  of  speak- 
ing is  hardly  even  a  half-truth.  And  if  it  does  not  mean 
this,  what  more  does  it  mean  than  that  they  come  about 
through  men  and  fill  their  lives  with  such  value  as  they 
have?  We  may  speak  of  "  building  up  "  a  science.  But 
neither  its  principles  nor  its  details  were  foreseen.  Rather 
they  were  discovered,  and  came  to  their  discoverers  as 
revelations.  We  give  credit  to  the  inventor  for  his  inven- 
tion, but  to  him  it  was  an  inspiration.  In  fact,  "  man-made  " 
is  appropriate  only  when  it  is  a  question  of  the  attribution 
of  authorship  for  social  purposes.  It  has  no  bearing  on  any 
deeper  theory  of  man's  relation  to  the  world  of  which  he 
is  a  part.  A  man's  thoughts  and  works  are  his  property 
which  he  may  sell  and  for  which  his  fellows  may  give  him 
credit  and  reputation,  but  these  social  rights  and  claims  of 
ownership  do  not  alter  the  fact  that  the  intellectual  power 
which  makes  one  man  a  great  artist,  another  a  great  scientist, 
and  so  on,  is  to  each  of  them  a  gift  not  of  his  own  devising 
or  procuring.  Apart  from  social  claims,  the  experience  of 
artistic  conception  or  scientific  discovery  is  truly  described, 
not  by  saying  "  I  am  the  maker  of  this  thought ",  but 
rather,  "  This  thought  takes  form,  or  shapes  itself,  in  me  ". 
Am  I  active  in  this  or  passive?  It  is  my  activity,  no  doubt, 
and  not  another  man's,  but  as  between  me  and  the  truth  or 
beauty  which  inspires  me,  it  is  its  activity  in  me.  It  is 
characteristic  that  the  thinkers  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
wont  to  speak  rather  of  being  "  passive  "  in  thinking.  Pas- 
sivity expressed  for  them  the  sense  of  being  instrumental  to 
something  which,  whilst  making  the  thinker  great  among 
men,  yet  is  acknowledged  by  him  to  be  greater  than  him- 


292  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS         [Ch.IX 

self.  "Not  I,  but  God  that  worketh  in  me."  What  is 
here  "  self  ",  what  "  not-self  "?  If  we  are  to  use  these  terms 
at  all,  we  shall  have  to  say  that  the  destiny  of  a  self  lies 
in  "  transcending  itself ",  i.e.,  in  surrendering  itself  to,  and 
identifying  itself  with,  the  universe.  This  may  be  traced, 
e.g.,  in  such  a  common  experience  as  choosing  one's  career. 
We  may  set  it  down  to  natural  bent  or  interest  on  the  one 
side,  and  circumstances  and  opportunity  on  the  other.  But 
"  bent  "  or  "  interest "  are  but  names  for  the  fact  that  some 
aspect  of  my  world  lays  hold  of  me  and  makes  me  its  in- 
strument. A  man's  choice  of  science  as  a  career  may  be 
due,  say,  to  the  chance  reading  of  a  book  which  fascinated 
him  by  its  line  of  thought  and  suggested  a  field  of  work  to 
which  his  whole  being  responds.  Does  he  choose  or  is  he 
chosen?  Does  he  select  the  problem  or  does  the  problem 
select  him?  The  man  will  probably  say  that  the  problem 
"  took  hold  "  of  him,  that  the  thought  "  possesses  "  him. 
He  is,  and  makes  himself,  its  willing  and  devoted  instru- 
ment for  working  itself  out.  The  career  he  chooses  is  his 
"  calling  ".  This  applies  no  less  to  those  lives  which  are 
devoted  to  distinctively  social  service  or  to^  social  reform 
and  reconstruction.  The  individual's  mind  and  will  is  the 
medium  through  which  the  social  world  strives  to  perfect 
itself. 

The  philosophical  interest  in  all  this  is  that  the  individual 
self  is  once  more  seen  to  be  double-edged.  Tennyson's 
triumphant  "  For  man  is  man,  and  master  of  his  fate " 
gives  one  edge.  The  view  that  we  are  nothing  but  "  God's 
puppets "  gives  the  other.  The  whole  truth  is  neatly 
summed  up  in  Bergson's  Nous  sommes  du  reel  dans  le  reel. 
From  this  principle  flows  the  spiritual  structure  of  all  self- 
consciousness.  It  implies  both  identity  and  difference  of 
"  self  "  and  "  world  ".  As  a  part,  the  self  is  distinguishable, 
not  from,  but  within,  the  whole,  and  the  whole  so  far  con- 


Ch.IX]          SELF  IN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  293 

fronts  the  self  as  an  overwhelming,  and  in  some  moods  as  a 
foreign  or  hostile,  "  Other  ".  But  the  part  also  belongs  to 
the  whole,  and  the  life  of  the  whole  pulses  in  the  part;  and 
this  sense  of  being  at  one  with,  or  at  home  in,  the  universe, 
is  the  complementary  oscillation  in  the  experience  of  being  a 
self  and,  as  such,  an  individual  focus  of  the  universe. 


CHAPTER  X 

EPILOGUE:  RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION 

NOTHING  is  more  striking  in  modern  philosophy  of  religion 
than  the  shift  of  emphasis  from  proofs  of  the  existence  of 
God  to  the  effort  to  understand  and  appreciate  religion,  not 
merely  as  a  historical  and  institutional  phenomenon,  but  as 
an  essential,  and  indeed  dominant,  factor  in  a  fully- 
developed  "  life  of  reason  "/  The  point  may  be  put,  with 
perhaps  exaggerated  sharpness,  in  the  form  of  an  antithesis. 
Religion  may  either  be  made  dependent  on  the  success  of 
demonstrations  of  the  existence  of  God,  or  the  existence  of 
God  may  be  shown  to  be  revealed  and  guaranteed  by  re- 
ligion. 

The  former  approach  may  seem,  on  the  face  of  it,  the 
more  plausible.  It  would  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  an  age 
which  has  become  critical  of  traditional  dogmas  and  sus- 
picious of  being  the  victim  of  superstition.  It  is  easy  to 
urge  that,  if  religion  is  to  be  justified  to  reasonable  men, 
they  must  be  convinced  first  that  God  exists.  Religion  is 
man's  relation  to  God,  but  what  if  there  be  no  such  thing 
as  God?  What  if  God  be  merely  a  figment  of  the  imagina- 
tion, a  survival  of  infantile  stages  of  human  thought,  when 
natural  forces,  as  yet  not  understood  nor  controlled,  were 
personified  as  higher  powers,  good  or  evil,  and  when  human 
safety  was  thought  to  depend  on  conforming  to  their  capri- 
cious will  or  escaping  their  incalculable  wrath?  Religious 
practices  and  religious  beliefs,  in  fact,  the  whole  ordering 

1 1  borrow,  as  best  expressing  my  meaning,  the  title  of  George 
Santayana's  well-known  series  of  books,  without  pretending  that  he 
would  endorse  my  use  of  it. 

294 


Ch.X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  295 

of  life  with  reference  to  God,  hinge,  from  this  point  of  view, 
on  the  possibility  of  first  showing,  beyond  any  reasonable 
chance  of  doubt,  that  God  exists  and  may  be  ignored  only 
at  inescapable  peril  to  human  fortune.  Not  only  to  sceptic 
and  atheist  has  it  seemed  plausible  to  argue  thus,  but  even 
believers  have,  at  times,  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  accept 
this  demand  as  reasonable.  And,  thus,  "  proofs  "  have  been 
constructed  by  way  of  communicating  a  conviction,  which  is 
communicable  only  on  the  basis  of  actual  religion,  to  those 
who  are  without  that  basis  or  have  lost  their  hold  upon  it. 
God  as  the  designer  of  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  God 
as  first  cause  and  creator  of  the  world,  God  as  necessarily 
existing  because  his  "  essence  "  as  all-perfect  logically  im- 
plies his  "  existence  " — there  is  no  need  to  rehearse  again 
the  familiar  details  of  the  physico-theological,  cosmological, 
ontological  proofs.  Divorced  from  their  basis  in  religion, 
through  which  alone  the  very  word  "  God  "  has  any  vital 
meaning,  they  become  ingenious  pieces  of  dialectics,  easily 
riddled  by  counter-dialectics,  and  enabling  the  critics  of 
religion  to  argue  that  a  scheme  of  faith  and  conduct  built  on 
foundations  so  flimsy  has  no  claim  upon  the  allegiance,  or 
even  the  respect,  of  reasonable  men. 

Far  otherwise  is  the  result  if  we  take  our  point  of  de- 
parture from  religion  itself,  if  we  approach  God  through 
religion,  instead  of  religion  through  an  argument  about  the 
existence  of  God.  The  crucial  importance  of  Hume's  Dia- 
logues on  Natural  Religion  and  Kant's  Critique  oj  Pure 
Reason  in  the  development  of  the  philosophy  of  religion  is 
just  this  that,  by  exposing  the  weakness  of  the  traditional 
proofs,  they  cleared  the  ground  for  that  fresh  philosophical 
appreciation  of  religion  in  which  Hegel  showed  the  way, 
and  to  which  various  modern  schools  of  thought  are  con- 
tributing. Technically,  this  movement  may  be  character- 
ised in  several  different  ways.  We  may  fasten  on  Hegel's 


296  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.X 

defence,  or  rather  re-statement,  of  the  ontological  proof, 
which  rests,  at  bottom,  on  the  principle  that  religion  has 
metaphysical  value,  that  it  not  only  helps  to  reveal  the  na- 
ture of  the  universe,  adds  to  our  insight  into  it,  but  that  it 
embodies,  like  philosophy,  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole. 
"  The  objects  of  philosophy  are  upon  the  whole  the  same  as 
those  of  religion.  In  both  the  object  is  Truth,  in  that 
supreme  sense  in  which  God  and  God  only  is  the  Truth." 
Or  we  may  say  that  theology,  as  the  theory  of  God,  pre- 
supposes "  acquaintance "  with  God,  and  that  religion  is 
this  knowledge  of  God  by  acquaintance.  As  Mr.  C.  C.  J. 
Webb  puts  it:  "  The  great  question  for  the  thinker  about 
religion  is  not  whether  God  exists,  but  rather  what  God  is." ' 
For  "  ultimately  our  only  evidence  of  the  existence  of  any- 
thing must  be  in  our  consciousness  of  it.  ...  Thus  the 
religious  consciousness  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the  exist- 
ence of  its  object.  ...  So  far  as  we  mean  by  God  no  more 
than  the  object  of  the  religious  consciousness,  the  existence 
of  God  is  not  really  doubtful  at  all."  3  What  is  doubted, 
what  may,  legitimately  in  a  sense,  be  doubted,  is  not  God's 
existence  but  God's  nature.  Doubt  of  God's  existence 
"  means  the  doubt  whether  what  we  have  been  accustomed 
to  call  God  is  God  at  all.  In  the  last  resort  of  all  it  means 
the  doubt  whether  the  ultimate  nature  of  reality,  if  it  were 
known  as  it  really  is,  would  continue  to  excite  the  religious 
sentiment  of  reverence  and  worship."  *  Another  illustra- 
tion of  the  characteristic  point  of  view  of  modern  philosophy 

1  From  the  opening  sentences  of  Hegel's  Logik,  ch.  i,  §  1    (trans- 
lation by  William  Wallace). 

2  Problems  in  the  Relation  of  God  and  Man,  p.  145.     Mr.  Webb's 
writings  belong  to  the  very  finest  work  in  present-day  philosophy  of 
religion. 

3  Loc.  cit.,  p.  141. 

4  Loc.  cit.,  p.  143.    Tt  will  be  noticed  that  Mr  .Webb's  position  agrees 
with  the  doctrine  of  these  essays,  that  doubting  the  existence  of  a 
thing  is  doubting  the  truth  of  a  theory  concerning  the  nature  of  that 
thing;  see  Ch.  iv. 


Ch.X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  297 

of  religion  may  be  found  in  Professor  W.  E.  Hocking's  The 
Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  which,  by  its  very 
title,  proclaims  that  reversal  of  approach  to  which  we  have 
been  drawing  attention.  Instead  of  starting  with  a  defined 
meaning  of  "  God  ",  and  then  inquiring  whether  that  mean- 
ing applies  to  any  object  met  with  in  experience,  the  new 
method  seeks  to  give  a  meaning  to  "  God  "  by  philosophical 
examination  of  what  experience  (which  term,  of  course,  in 
this  context  includes  thought,  or,  in  Hocking's  language, 
"  idea  ",  as  well  as  "  feeling  ")  reveals  of  the  nature  of  the 
universe.  This  is  to  "  know  "  God  and  be  assured  of  his 
existence.  This  is  to  realise,  and  make  a  vital  possession  of, 
what  the  word  "  God  "  stands  for.  And  by  calling  this 
examination  "  philosophical "  we  mean,  as  explained  in  the 
first  essay,  that  it  requires  not  merely  a  stock-taking,  but 
an  evaluation,  guided  by  the  immanent  dialectic  of  experi- 
ence— by  that  process  of  correction,  completion,  deepening 
interpretation,  which  takes  place  when  diverse  "  appear- 
ances ",  as  systems  of  judgment  or  theories,  are  focused 
together  and  press  for  inclusion  in  a  coherent  system,  stand- 
ing, relatively  to  the  systems  absorbed  into  it,  in  the  position 
of  "  the  whole." 

Not  least  has  modern  psychology  of  religion  reinforced 
this  whole  movement,  though  it  is  to  be  confessed  that  some 
of  our  psychologists  have  made  a  study  of  religious  experi- 
ence "  from  within "  unduly  difficult  for  themselves  by 
approaching  it  with  naturalistic  or  biological  categories — 
anything  but  examining  it  on  its  own  ground,  or  analysing 
it  in  its  own  terms,  which  is,  after  all,  the  only  way  of 
understanding  it  on  its  merits.  Yet  the  man  who  was 
bahnbrechend  in  this  field  is  not  open  to  this  charge,  and  his 
example  may  well  serve  to  point  our  moral.  The  last  chap- 
ter of  James's  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience  shows  how 
profoundly  his  study  of  the  forms  of  the  religious  con- 


298  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.X 

sciousness  had  impressed  him  with  its  metaphysical  implica- 
tions. One  may  feel  misgivings  about  the  direction  which 
he  gave  to  his  speculations  on  the  nature  of  reality  as  re- 
vealed through  religion,  but  his  general  principle  is  sound. 
One  may  not  share  his  sympathy  with  Fechner's  concept  of 
a  world-soul,  or  his  opinion  that  the  mind-cures  of  Chris- 
tian Science  are  of  special  significance  for  religion  and  meta- 
physics. But  the  truth  of  his  final  estimate  of  religion  is 
independent  of  these  things.  "  The  logical  understanding, 
working  in  abstraction  from  such  specifically  religious  ex- 
periences, will  always  omit  something,  and  fail  to  reach  com- 
pletely adequate  conclusions.  Death  and  failure,  it  will 
always  say,  are  death  asid  failure  simply,  and  can  never- 
more be  one  with  life;  so  religious  experience,  peculiarly  so 
called,  needs,  in  my  opinion,  to  be  carefully  considered  and 
interpreted  by  every  one  who  aspires  to  reason  out  a  more 
complete  philosophy." l  This,  as  will  have  been  seen,  is  the 
position  of  these  essays,  too. 

If  the  efforts  of  modern  philosophy  of  religion  to  under- 
stand and  appreciate  religion  are  themselves  to  be  justly 
appreciated,  two  things  must  be  borne  in  mind. 

(a)  The  first  is  that,  whilst  these  thinkers  care  greatly 
about  religion,  they  care,  as  a  rule,  little  about  the  institu- 
tional forms  of  religion,  and  the  special  problems  which  these 
raise.  They  think  of  religions  rather  than  of  churches,  de- 
nominations, sects.  They  may  even  be  said  to  be  thinking 
more  of  religion  as  such  than  of  religions,  or  of  the  minutiae 
of  creed  and  ritual  which  are  so  often  all  that  divide  religions 
from  one  another.  In  this  neglect  of  church,  as  distinct 
from  religion,  there  is  probably  loss  as  well  as  gain,  but  it  is 
the  outcome,  at  any  rate,  of  an  effort  to  penetrate  behind  the 
outward  form  and  body  to  the  spiritual  life.  Moreover,  it 

1 A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  306-07. 


Ch.X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  299 

corresponds  to  the  facts  in  an  age  when  much  genuinely 
religious  thought  is  driven  out  of  the  churches,  or,  at  least, 
cannot  find  free  development  in  their  cramping  atmosphere, 
and  when  the  reluctance  of  the  churches  to  abandon  tradi- 
tional forms  of  words  which  have  become  outworn,  con- 
demns them  to  fall  ever  further  behind  the  best  modern 
thought.  If  we  are  to  seek  the  "  meaning  of  God  "  in  human 
experience,  we  cannot  prejudice  the  success  of  our  enterprise 
by  starting  out  with  a  burden  of  traditional  terms  and  pre- 
possessions. Philosophers,  theologians,  and  literary  men 
agree  in  urging  that  we  must  re-think,  and  reformulate  too, 
our  concept  of  God,  if  we  are  to  deal  satisfactorily  with  the 
age-old  problems  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge.  From 
Professor  A.  Seth  Pringle-Pattison's  The  Idea  of  God  in  the 
Light  of  Recent  Philosophy,  to  H.  G.  Well's  God  the  In- 
visible King  and  The  Undying  Fire,  these  experiments,  as 
varied  as  they  are  sincere,  in  re-thinking  and  reformulating 
are  going  on.  But,  with  rare  exceptions,  the  representatives 
of  the  churches  are  holding  aloof,  and  continue  to  speak,  if 
not  to  think,  of  God  in  terms  which  "  may  be  not  unfairly 
described  as  a  fusion  of  the  primitive  monarchical  ideal 
with  Aristotle's  conception  of  the  Eternal  Thinker ". 1 
Here,  too,  we  must  look  for  the  reason  why  philosophy  of 
religion  is,  as  a  rule,  little  interested  in  interpreting  specific 
dogmas,  especially  when  these,  like  the  doctrines  of  most 
Christian  churches,  are  made  up  of  propositions  of  very 
different  orders,  partly  purely  historical,  partly  miraculous, 
partly  attributing  spiritual  significance  to  certain  historical 
events,  partly  expressing  directly  moral  or  spiritual  truths. 
Moreover,  there  is  much  of  metaphor  and  symbolism  in  the 
religious  language  of  tradition,  the  interpretation  of  which  is 
apt  to  take  the  interpreter  far  away  from  the  more  or  less 
literal  meaning  demanded  by  orthodoxy. 

1  Pringle-Pattison,  he.  cit.,  p.  407. 


300  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  fCh.X 

And,  lastly,  the  consideration  of  religion  organised  in 
churches  is  bound  to  draw  the  student  into  problems  which 
cease,  in  any  specific  sense,  to  be  religious.  They  are  the 
problems  which  we  may  conveniently  sum  up  under 
"  church-politics  " — problems  of  church-government;  prob- 
lems of  the  mutual  rivalries  of  churches  in  the  mission- 
field  and  at  home;  problems  of  the  relations  of  church  to 
state;  problems  of  the  entanglement  of  churches,  as  prop- 
erty-holding bodies,  with  the  social  and  economic  issues  of 
the  time.  From  whatever  point  of  view  these  may  interest 
the  philosopher,  they  are  remote  from  those  actualities  of 
religious  experience  in  which  he  seeks  to  find  God.  Even 
Royce  is  not  wholly  an  exception  to  this  statement.  For, 
although  his  study  of  "  loyalty  "  led  him  in  his  Problem  of 
Christianity  to  emphasise  the  social  form  of  experience,1  and 
to  claim  that  "  the  church,  rather  than  the  person  of  the 
founder,  ought  to  be  viewed  as  the  central  idea  of  Chris- 
tianity ",  it  is  easy  to  see  that  Royce's  "  blessed  com- 
munity "  bears  the  lineaments  rather  of  the  ideal  "  com- 
munion of  saints "  than  of  any  historical  organisation 
enmeshed  in  the  toils  of  legal,  economic,  and  political  re- 
lationships. Or,  at  least,  it  is  only  after  these  meshes  and 
encrustations  have  been  torn  off,  that  it  can  be  made  to 
appear  how  little  the  individual  can  do  for  his  salvation, 
apart  from  that  spiritual  union  with  others  through  which 
alone  the  evil  he  does  can  be  atoned.  And  even  then  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  church  of  his  fathers  can  be  to  a 
given  man  his  blessed  community.  Royce's  plea  is  a  plea 
for  a  religious  community  as  such.  It  is  not  a  plea  that 
existing  churches,  as  they  stand,  are  capable  of  rendering 
the  spiritual  services  which  he  values.2 

1  See  Royce's  The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty  and,  for  its  relation  to  the 
Problem  of  Christianity,  the  preface  of  the  latter  book  (vol.  i,  p.  vii  ff.). 

2  The  development  of  Royce's  philosophy  of  religion  would  be  an 
interesting  subject  of  study.     He  would  seem  to  have  passed  from 


Ch.X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  301 

(b)  Having,  so  far,  considered  what  we  are  not  to 
expect  from  modern  philosophy  of  religion,  we  must  now 
turn  to  our  second  point:  what  are  we  to  expect? 

In  answer  to  this  question  we  may  at  once  crystallise 
what  we  have  said  so  far  into  the  affirmation  that  the  stu- 
dent of  religion,  if  he  is  not  to  miss  the  heart  of  his  subject, 
must  himself  be  religious.1  To  be  religious,  to  know  religion 
from  within  or  by  acquaintance,  to  know  what  it  is  to  be 
religious  by  being  it — these  are  ways  of  describing  the  pre- 
requisite without  which  we  may  bluntly  say  that  the  student 
will  not  know  what  he  is  talking  about.  Without  it,  his 
thinking  will  not  be,  in  Royce's  phrase,  "  from  the  life  ". 
Without  it,  his  knowledge  will  be  an  outsider's  knowledge — 
knowledge  about  religion,  not  knowledge  of  it.  Without  it, 
he  will  be  a  helpless  prey  to  the  danger  which  besets  all 
reflection — the  danger  of  over-detachment  from  its  subject 
in  the  very  effort  to  get  a  good  look  at  it. 

Further,  being  religious,  his  "  criticism  "  of  religion,  i.e., 
his  effort  to  understand  it,  will  be  sympathetic  and  appre- 
ciative. His  aim  will  be  a  theodicy,  or,  rather,  as  we  must 
say,  a  justification  of  religion,  an  exhibition  of  its  value. 
His  theme  will  be  the  "  truth  "  of  religion,  in  the  sense  of  its 
essence,  its  meaning,  which,  in  turn,  cannot  be  adequately 
appreciated  except  through  a  study  of  what  religion  truly  is. 
For  this  purpose  he  must,  of  course,  study  it  where  it  is  at 
its  best,  where  its  true  character  is  most  fully  manifest.  So 
studied,  he  will  find  it  to  be  a  response  to,  or  acknowledg- 
ment of,  that  character  of,  or  in,  the  world  for  which  we 
have  the  words  "  God  "  or  "  divine  ".  Religion  is  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  character.  The  presence  of  this  character 

a  concept  of  God  in  which  Aristotelian  were  blended  with  Berkeleian 
motives,  via  the  concept  of  Absolute  Experience,  to  the  concept  of 
the  Blessed  Community. 

1  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  repeat  that  "  being  religious  ",  here,  does 
not  mean  being  a  member  of  a  particular  church,  or  accepting  some 
set  of  "  orthodox  "  dogmas  in  their  orthodox  interpretation. 


302  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.X 

is  by  it  revealed.  The  sentiment  of  worship,  reverence, 
awe,  is  our  response  to  it  in  terms  of  feeling.  The  judg- 
ment of  perfection *  is  our  response  to  it  in  terms  of  thought. 

This  does  not  exhaust,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  the  har- 
vest of  the  philosopher  of  religion.  But  even  at  this  point 
he  has  got  beyond  the  estimate  that  the  religious  sentiment 
is  a  mere  superstition  or  make-believe,  a  mere  childish  whim 
to  be  outgrown.  It  is  not  merely  "  subjective  ",  but  charged 
with  objectivity.  A  real  character  of  the  world  is  in  it 
seized  by  us,  brought  home  to  us. 

And  what  is  this  real  character  which  religion  is  to  be 
valued  for  revealing?  It  is  that  "  the  real  world  is  in- 
finitely charged  with  interest  and  value," 2  indeed  that  it  is 
our  weakness,  or  limitation,  or  self-will,  our  lack  of  power 
or  understanding  which  brings  moods  when  the  world  seems 
otherwise,  and  the  above  too  hard  a  saying  to  accept. 

For,  certainly,  this  hard  saying  opens  up  further  problems 
for  the  philosopher  of  religion.  To  acknowledge  that  some 
things  in  the  universe  are  charged  with  interest  and  value 
is  easy.  To  show  that  all  things  are,  or  rather  that  the 
whole  is — for  the  value  now  in  question  is  not  to  be  taken 
distributively,  as  attaching  to  things  in  isolation,  but  as 
belonging  to  them  through  the  whole  of  which  they  form 
part — this  is  a  task  not  to  be  attempted  by  working  with 
superficial  impressions  or  shallow  reflections.  If  we  are  to 
have  a  theory  wrought  from  the  life,  then,  as  Dr.  Bosanquet 

1 "  Perfection ",  in  anything  like  its  everyday  sense,  is,  of  course, 
an  awkward  term  to  use  for  what  is  here  intended,  though  there  is 
good  authority,  both  philosophical  and  theological,  for  the  use.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  judgment  of  perfection  includes  such  an  experience 
as  this:  "In  the  spectacle  of  Death,  in  the  endurance  of  intolerable 
pain,  and  in  the  irrevocableness  of  a  vanished  past,  there  is  a  sacred- 
ness,  an  overpowering  awe,  a  feeling  of  the  vastness,  the  depth,  the 
inexhaustible  mystery  of  existence,  in  which,  as  by  some  strange  mar- 
riage of  pain,  the  sufferer  is  bound  to  the  world  by  bonds  of  sorrow." 
— B.  Russell,  The  Free  Man's  Worship  (Philosophical  Essays,  p.  67). 

2  W.  E.  Hocking,  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience, 
p.  xiii. 


Ch.X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  303 

puts  it,  we  need  not  only  the  best  of  logic,  but  the  best  of 
life.  Indeed,  we  cannot  have  the  former  in  these  questions 
of  the  central  and  fundamental  values  without  the  latter. 

The  full  sting  of  this  problem  of  the  value  of  the  world 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  whole  is  concentrated  in  the 
problem  of  evil,  and  in  that  solution  of  it  which  in  the  lan- 
guage of  religious  experience  is  variously  described  as  salva- 
tion from  sin,  reconciliation  or  union  with  God,  freedom  or 
escape  from  bondage.1  If  the  student  would  hold  steadily 
to  his  path  here,  he  must  pass  by  the  plausible  despair  of 
pessimism,  the  more  tempting  for  many  an  eloquent  utter- 
ance, and  the  even  more  plausible  siren-song  of  meliorism, 
saying  that  the  only  problem  of  evil  is  how  to  do  away  with 
it,  and  calling  to  him  to  be  its  vanquisher.  If  he  holds 
steadily  on  his  path  and  learns  to  appreciate  the  spirit  of 
religion  at  its  best,  he  will  find  that  it  lifts  him  equally  be- 
yond despair  at  human  impotence,  and  a  too  ready  confi- 
dence in  a  victory  to  be  achieved  by  human  knowledge  and 
power  over  a  world  inhuman  and  reckless  of  human  ideals. 
He  will  find  himself  encouraged,  indeed,  to  use  his  resources 
to  the  utmost — trust  in  God  does  not  mean  "  moral  holi- 
days " — but  he  will  be  taught  also  that  the  roots  of  evil  lie 
very  deep  and  that  his  strength  is  weakness.2  Above  all, 
he  will  be  led  to  seek  to  understand,  and  form  an  estimate 
of,  evil,  not  taken  in  the  abstract,  but  in  the  context  of  what 
the  best,  i.e.,  the  bravest  and  most  understanding,  response 
can  make  of  it.  And  the  reminder  that  Christianity  is  a 
religion  of  suffering,  will  help  to  teach  him  that  he  may  miss 
happiness  altogether,  if  he  expects  to  get  it  on  terms  too 
cheap. 

1  Cf.  the  fourth  and  fifth  books  of  Spinoza's  Ethics,  de  servitute, 
and  de  libertate  humana. 

2  "  Sincerely  to  give  up  one's  conceit  or  hope  of  being  good  in  one's 
own  right  is  the  only  door  to  the  universe's  deeper  reaches." — W.  James, 
A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  305. 


304  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.X 

The  problem  of  religion,  in  short,  is  a  problem  of  con- 
fidence and  trust  in  the  universe — not  the  kind  of  confidence 
in  which  a  man,  hoping  God  is  on  the  job,  takes  life  easily 
himself,  but  the  kind  which  is  a  source  of  power,  and  makes 
him  an  effective  force  for  good.  It  is  a  confidence  without 
which  his  heart  may  well  fail  him  in  the  fight  with  evil,  but 
which  must  be  grounded  so  deep,  that  even  defeats  in  that 
fight  cannot  unsettle  it. 

Such  confidence  is  neither  easily  acquired  nor  easily  main- 
tained. It  is  liable  to  be  assailed,  even  broken,  by  doubts, 
when  greatly  tried  by  pain,  by  sin,  by  the  sense  of  meaning- 
less effort  against  meaningless  evil. 

Such  doubts  have  come  to  many  during  the  soul-searching 
days  of  the  war.  "  God  and  Christianity  raised  perplexities 
in  the  minds  of  simple  lads  desiring  life  and  not  death. 
They  could  not  reconcile  the  Christian  precepts  of  the  chap- 
lain with  the  bayoneting  of  Germans  and  the  shambles  of 
the  battlefields.  All  this  blood  and  mangled  flesh  in  the 
fields  of  France  and  Flanders  seemed  to  them — to  many  of 
them,  I  know — a  certain  proof  that  God  did  not  exist,  or  if 
He  did  exist  was  not,  as  they  were  told,  a  God  of  Love,  but 
a  monster  glad  of  the  agonies  of  men.  That  at  least  was  the 
thought  expressed  to  me  by  some  London  lads  who  argued 
the  matter  with  me  one  day  before  the  German  drive  in 
March,  and  that  was  the  thought  which  our  army  chaplains 
had  to  meet  from  men  who  would  not  be  put  off  by  conven- 
tional words.  It  was  not  good  enough  to  tell  them  that  the 
Germans  were  guilty  of  all  this  crime  and  that  unless  the 
Germans  were  beaten  the  world  would  lose  its  liberty  and 
life.  '  Yes,  we  know  all  that,'  they  said,  '  but  why  did 
God  allow  the  Germans  and  how  is  it  that  both  sides  pray  to 
the  same  God  for  victory?  There  must  be  something  wrong 
somewhere.'  It  was  not  often  men  talked  like  that,  except 
to  some  chaplain  who  was  a  human,  comradely  soul,  some 


Ch.  X]  PHILOSOPHY  OF  RELIGION  305 

Catholic  '  padre '  who  devoted  himself  fearlessly  to  their 
bodily  and  spiritual  needs,  risking  his  life  with  them  or  to 
some  Presbyterian  minister  who  brought  them  hot  cocoa 
under  shell-fire  with  a  cheery  word  or  two,  as  I  once  heard, 
of  '  Keep  your  hearts  up,  my  lads,  and  your  heads  down.' 
Most  of  the  men  became  fatalists.  .  .  . " 1 

Here  we  have  the  genuine  voice  of  religious  doubt.  And 
let  it  be  noted  that  it  is  a  doubt  not  engendered  by  specula- 
tion about  the  miraculous  features  in  traditional  dogma,  the 
virgin-birth,  the  resurrection,  the  ascension,  and  the  rest; 
nor,  again,  by  conflicts  between  the  world  of  scientific 
theory  and  the  world  of  religious  imagination.  The  vital, 
devastating  doubts  about  God's  existence  and  goodness  are 
born  of  the  bitter  experience  of  evil,  of  the  overmastering 
sense  of  being  engulfed  in  a  world  without  sense  or  reason — 
a  world  without  value. 

Against  such  doubt,  proofs  of  God's  existence  are  power- 
less, and  the  best  subtleties  of  theological  speculation  on  the 
personality  of  God  or  his  attributes  little  better  than  words 
borne  on  the  wind.  Such  doubt  cannot  be  overcome  by  argu- 
ment, unless  argument  should  succeed  in  mobilising  again 
resources  of  confidence  and  appreciation  of  value  which  are, 
for  the  time  being,  eclipsed.  Perhaps,  as  the  author  of 
the  passage  seems  to  imply,  the  best  answer  is  to  carry  on, 
with  steadfast  courage,  some  unselfish  action,  revealing  re- 
ligious confidence  more  eloquently  than  words  can  do. 

In  any  case,  we  have  cited  this  example  of  doubt,  in  order 
to  show  that  what  matters,  at  bottom,  when  men  believe  in 
"  God  "  or  despair  of  him,  is  this  sense  of  the  pervading 
value,  or  worthwhileness,  of  the  world. 

The  essence  of  religion  is  the  claim  that  the  world  has 
this  value  and  is,  in  that  sense,  divine.  To  be  religious  is 
to  respond  to,  and  appreciate,  this  value,  not  primarily  by 

1  Quoted  from  an  article  by  the  war  correspondent,  Philip  Gibbs. 


306  CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS  [Ch.X 

dint  of  reflective  theory,  but  in  the  simple  straightforward 
spirit  of  one's  living.  But  when  life  becomes  dark  and  diffi- 
cult, this  sense  of  value  may  be  lost  and  prove  hard  to  re- 
cover. That  it  is  not  easy,  nor  in  every  one's  power,  when 
the  test  comes,  to  hold  steadfastly  to  the  attitude  of  confi- 
dence and  worship,  should  not  dismay  us.  Omnia  praeclara 
tarn  difficilia  quam  rara  sunt.  A  study  of  religion,  above  all 
in  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women  who  have  in  an  eminent 
sense  been  inspired  by  its  power  and  courage,  shows  that  no 
burden  so  heavy  can  be  laid  upon  the  human  heart  as  to 
prevent  "  God  from  firing  it  with  his  presence." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Activity,  mental,  229. 
Adams,    G.    P.,    191  n. 
Alexander,  S.,  206,  219  ff.,  228,  230. 
Analogy,   in  knowledge   of   other 

minds,  207. 
Animate,  meaning  of  in  biology, 

155  n. 
Animism,  banished   from  science, 

176  S.;   not   based   on   analogy, 

213  ff. 

Antinomy,   as  a  source  of  prob- 
lems  for  philosophy,    15. 
Appearances,    saving   the,    ch.    5 ; 

102,   in,  114. 
Aristotelian,  theory  of  mind,  203, 

235,  237  ff. 

Aristotle,   131,   142,   160,  242,  299. 
Arrhenius,  198. 
Augustine,  St.,  239  n. 
Automatic  sweetheart,  215  ff.,  220. 
Autonomy,     of     a     science,     146, 

176  ff. 

Bacon,  Francis,  142,  Novum  Or- 
ganum,  28,  50,  60. 

Bagot,  R.,  The  Hyenas  of  Pirra, 
96  H. 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  The  Foundations 
of  Belief,  64;  Humanism  and 
Theism,  66. 

Behaviour,  behaviourism,  203,  204, 
225,  228,  232,  238  (B.=  Aris- 
totle's energeia),  242,  273. 

Belief,   instinctive,   124. 

Bergson,  Henri,  72,  96,  102  n., 
165  n.,  168,  175,  Note  to  ch.  7 
(pp.  196  ff.),  201,  241,  284 n.,  292. 

Berkeley,  101,  117,  140  n.,  235 ». 

Bernard,  Claude,  146,  152. 

Bethe,  A.,  148. 

Boodin,  J.  E.,  230  n. 

Bosanquet,  Bernard,  197,  332 ;  The 
Principle  of  Individuality  and 
Value,  27  n.,  48  n.,  185  n.,  287  «.; 
The  Distinction  Between  Mind 
and  Its  Objects,  Son.;  Logic, 


134 «-,  136  ».,  137,  i88n.,  190 »., 

192  n.,  248  n. 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  53,  232,  248,  254, 
Broad,  C.  D.,   140  n.;  Perception, 

Physics     and     Reality,     103*1., 

121  ff. 
Butler,    Samuel,    Erewhon,    161; 

Luck  or  Cunning f  201,  267. 

Calkins,  Mary  Whitton,  102  n. 

Cause,  effcient  v.  final,  158  ff. 

Chance,  in  origin  of  life,  199  ff. 

Clifford,  W.  K.,  102  n. 

Cognitive  Relation,  205  ff.,  Note 
to  ch.  8  (244  ff.),  248  ff. 

Comte,  Auguste,  101. 

Consciousness,  how  dealt  with  by 
science,  178;  theories  of,  ch.  8; 
relation- 1  theory  of,  206,  230; 
existence  of,  208;  as  cross-sec- 
tion, or  as  quality,  225  ff., 
242 ff.;  as  stream,  235;  Des- 
cartes' concept  of,  241. 

Dante,  268  ». 

Darwin,  F.  S.,  Descent  of  Man, 
68 ;  Voyage  of  the  Beagle,  93  ». 

Data  (see  also  Sense-data),  of 
Philosophy,  14 ff.;  Transition  to 
non-data.  36;  and  interpreta- 
tion, 77  ff. 

Dead,  how  fitting  into  classifica- 
tion of  living  and  non-living, 
154  n. 

Descartes,  28,  80,  81,  142,  203, 
235.  239  ff.,  240  n.,  241  ff.,  271. 

Descriptions,  in  the  theory  of 
unreal  objects,  89  ff. 

Determinism,  156,  187. 

Dewey,  John,  theory  of  scientific 
method  in  philosophy,  38  ff. ; 
Democracy  and  Education,  40. 

Dreams,  as  unreal,  70,  74,  81,  96  ff. 

Driesch,  H.,  142,  167,  175,  196. 

Duree,  or  real  time,  197. 


309 


3io 


INDEX 


Elan  vital,   10211.,   144,   175,   196, 

198,  201,  241,  242. 
Empathy    (Einfuhlung),    217  ft. 
Entelechy,  Driesch's,  94,  144,  195; 

Aristotle's,  238. 
Enzyme-theory,  of  origin  of  life, 

199  «. 

Epiphenomenalism,   178,  241. 
Equipotential  svstem,  168. 
Ethical,   neutrality   in   philosophy, 

30,  67. 
Existence,     and     the     ontological 

proof,  90  ff. 
External,  world,  70,  81  ff. 

Fact,  opposed  to  value,  22,  54  ff., 
187  ff. ;  needing  to  be  synthe- 
sised  with  value,  67,  195;  op- 
posed to  wishes,  51 ;  distin- 
guished from  theory,  92,  133  ff. 

Fechner,  G.Th.,  298. 

Form,    v.    matter    in    philosophy, 

27,  35- 

Frege,  Gottlob,  33. 
Freud,     Sigmund,     53,     96,     97, 

204. 
Functions,  prepositional,  89. 

Galileo,  142. 

Gegenstandstheorie,  86  ff .,  249. 

Geisteswissenschaft,  v.  Naturwis- 
senschaft,  73. 

Gibbs,  Philip,  304  ff. 

God,  eliminated  from  science, 
177;  proofs  for  existence  of, 
294  ff. ;  existence  guaranteed  by 
religion,  296  ff. ;  meaning  of, 
301  ff. 

Good,  as  indefinable,  57. 

Haeckel,  Ernst,  72. 

Haldane,  J.  S.,  141 ».,  i66ff. 

Hall,  Fielding,  The  Soul  of  a 
Nation,  266  n. 

Hartmann,  E.  von,  102  n. 

Hegel,  242,  248  n.,  284  n.,  295, 
296  n. 

Henderson,  L.  J.,  141 «.,  173 ; 
The  Order  of  Nature,  143, 
161  n.;  The  Fitness  of  the  En- 
vironment, 192. 

Hobhouse,   L.  T.,   141  n.,  165  ff. 

Hobbes,  189. 

Hocking,  W.  E.,  on  knowledge  of 
other  minds,  229 ».;  The  Mean- 


ing of  God  in  Human  Experi- 
ence, 296. 

Hodgson,  R.,  269. 

Holt,  E.  B.,  on  mind  as  a  cross- 
section,  225;  revival  of  Aris- 
totelian concept  of  mind,  237; 
The  Place  of  Illusory  Experi- 
ence in  a  Realistic  World,  86  n.; 
The  Freudian  Wish,  92,  148, 
185  n.,  204,  226  n.,  237  n.,  239  n., 
245,  273;  The  Concept  of  Con- 
sciousness, 212  n. 

Hume,  David,  91,  101,  142,  235, 
240  n.,  283,  284,  295. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  178  n.,  190. 

I  (personal  pronoun;  see  Mine), 
ambiguity  of,  256. 

Idealism,  subjective,  70. 

Identity,  in  difference,  110,  113, 
119,  284;  and  continuity,  182; 
personal,  280  ff. ;  judgments  of, 
281  ff. ;  and  change,  282 ;  ab- 
stract, 283;  experience  of,  285; 
degrees  of,  287. 

Image,  Idea  and  Meaning,  au- 
thor's article  on,  120  n. 

Indeterminism,  experimental,  157, 
195 ;  absolute,  ibidem;  and 
teleology,  187  ff. 

Individual,  as  self-existent,  102; 
perception  of,  135  ff.;  more  than 
a  class  of  sense-data,  136;  has 
form  or  structure,  ibidem. 

Instrumentalism,  38  ff. 

Interaction-theory  of  body  of 
soul,  272  ff. 

Introspection,  120;  difficulties  of, 
205,  207;  in  support  of  "objec- 
tive "  psychology,  22*?  ff. 

Introspective  v.  biological  theory 
of  mind,  ch.  8,  passim. 

Intuition,  24,   197. 

James,  William,  41,  121,  229  n., 
235,  257,  269,  284  n.;  A  Plural- 
istic Universe,  24  ff.,  303  n.; 
Essays  in  Radical  Empericism, 
203  n.,  236  n.;  Varieties  of  Re- 
ligious Experience,  204,  297; 
The  Meaning  of  Truth,  216  n.; 
Principles  of  Psychology,  236  n., 
274  ff.,  280  ff. 

James-Lange  theory  of  emotion, 
261. 


INDEX 


Jennings,  H.  S.,  141  n.,  147  n., 
153  n.,  157,  158,  197  n. 

Kant,  17,  28,  54,  91,  101,  125,  142, 
160,  235,  241  (re-discovery  of 
judgment),  247  (on  theory  of 
knowledge),  284,  295. 

Keller,  Helen,  232. 

Kidd,  Dudley,  181. 

Kipling,  R.,  The  Finest  Story  in 
the  World,  267  n. 

Knowledge,  theory  of,  Note  to 
ch.  8  (244  ff.),  205  ff. ;  biological 
theory  of,  244;  v.  opinion  and 
error,  245  ff . ;  as  reality  truly 
apprehended,  ibidem. 

Laird,  John,  260;  Problems  of 
Self,  278  ff.;  defence  of  psy- 
chical substance,  279. 

La  Mettrie,   170. 

Language,  as  cause  of  meta- 
physical illusions,  87  ff. ;  as  ex- 
pressing universals,  133. 

Laplace,  177. 

Law,  in  science,  156  ff. ;  v.  sys- 
tem, 185. 

LeConte,  Joseph,  258  n. 

Leibniz,  102  n.,  142,  195,  21  in. 

Life,  origin  of,  Note  to  ch.  7 
(i96ff.). 

Lipps,   Theodor,   218  n.,  219  n. 

Locke,  John,  on  distinction  of 
primary  and  secondary  qualities, 
Note  to  ch.  5  (i39ff.). 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  269,  270. 

Loeb,  Jacques,  142,  172,  173 »., 
178. 

Logic,  in  philosophy,  27;  tem- 
pered by  social  utility  and  tact, 
28;  and  sense  of  reality,  88. 

Lotze,  H.,  102  n. 

Lovejoy,  A.  O.,  147 «.,  148 n.,  151. 

McDougall,  W.,  241 ;  Body  and 
Mind,  260. 

McGilvary,  E.  M.,  191  n. 

McTaggart,  J.  McT.  E.,  Some 
Dogmas  of  Religion,  258,  266. 

Mach,  Ernst,  101. 

Machine,  living,  r6i ;  and  mech- 
anism, 165  ff. ;  and  physico- 
chemical  theory,  170. 

Marvin,  F.  S.,  The  Living  Past; 
The  Century  of  Hope,  29  n. 


Marvin,  W.  T.,  141  n.}  171  n., 
175  ff.,  178*1.,  182. 

Material  world,  70,  80  ff. 

Materialism,   59,  205. 

Matter,  v.  form  in  philosophy,  27, 
35 ;  existence  of  physicist's, 
70;  Berkeley's  denial  of,  101. 

Mechanism  (see  also  Machine 
and  Teleology),  v.  vitalism,  chs. 
6,  7 ;  in  terms  of  primary  quali- 
ties, 117;  compatible  with  teleol- 
ogy, 143,"  not  identical  with 
determinism,  156  ff. ;  as  exclud- 
ing conscious  purpose  from 
science,  180;  incompatible  with 
evolution,  197 ;  incompatible  with 
novelty,  198. 

Meinong,  A.  von,  Untersuchungen 
zur  Gegenstandstheorie,  86  n. 

Meliorism,  42. 

Metaphysical,  v.  positivistic,  94, 
101. 

Method,  problem  of  in  philosophy, 
chs.  i,  2;  scientific,  ch.  2; 
philosophical  method  as  experi- 
mental, 47. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  101,  n8».,  130. 

Mind,  theories  of,  ch.  8;  func- 
tional theory  of,  203 ;  the  sav- 
ing of,  205  ff. ;  acquaintance 
with,  208  ff. ;  alleged  privacy  of, 
211  ff.,  224;  in  social  inter- 
course, 221  ff. ;  as  over-lapping 
other  minds  in  a  common 
world,  226  ff. ;  acts  of,  228  ff. ; 
as  subject,  or  focus  of  experi- 
ences, 242  ff.,  290  ff. 

Mine  (see  "I"),  ambiguity  of, 
223  ff. 

Mitchell,  P.  Chalmers,  141  n.; 
175  ff- 

Moore,  G.  E.,  on  consciousness  as 
a  quality,  228;  Principia  Ethica, 
57  n.;  Some  Judgments  of  Per- 
ception, 126  ff. 

Morality,  relation  to  religion,  46. 

Miinsterberg,    H.,   204  n.,   222  n. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  269. 

Naturalism,   59,   174  ff. 

Nature,  philosophy  of,  ch.  3;  as 

a  hierarchy  of  appearances,  72; 

unified  theory  of,   147. 
Neo-realists,    81,    112,    206,    228, 

249. 


312 


INDEX 


Newton,  142,  167. 

Nunn,  T.  P.,  The  Aims  of  Scien- 
tific Method,  93 n.,  inn.;  pri- 
mary and  secondary  syntheses, 
93- 

Ontolpgical  proof,  91. 
Organisation,  as  evidence  of  pur- 
posiveness,  160,  173. 

Panpsychism,  72,   102  n. 

Parallelism,  psychophysical  or 
psychoneural,  271. 

Parker,  DeWitt,  The  Self  and 
Nature,  286;  on  personal  iden- 
tity, ibidem. 

Pearson,  Karl,  101. 

Peirce,  Charles  S.,  181,  201  n. 

Perception,  ch.  5 ;  as  a  kind  of 
judgment,  99;  as  pure,  distinct 
from  judgment,  I2off. ;  as  a 
two-term  relation,  125  ff. ;  G.  E. 
Moore's  analysis  of,  127  ff. 

Perfection,  302  n. 

Perry,  R.  B.,  Present  Philo- 
sophical Tendencies,  29  n.,  65, 
226  n.,  228  n.,  229  n.,  230. 

Personal  identity,  280  ff . 

Phenomenalistic,  v.  metaphysical, 
94,  101. 

Phenomenology,  concept  of,  81. 

Philosophy,  its  nature  and  value, 
ch.  i ;  scientific  method  in, 
ch.  2;  and  practical  life,  4  ff . ; 
and  social  reform,  5  ff. ;  and 
science,  6ff.,  174;  and  religion, 
8ff.,  ch.  10 ;  its  data,  14 ff.; 
subjective  or  objective,  i6ff. ; 
make-believe  like  art,  17,  52 ff.; 
as  revelation  of  reality,  18;  and 
value,  21 ;  intuition  and  reason 
in,  24;  disagreements  in,  26; 
material,  not  formal,  27;  proof 
and  verification  in,  46 ff.;  prog- 
ress in,  48;  reasonableness  of 
choices  in,  58. 

Philosophising,  10  ff. ;  as  spirit  of 
wholeness,  n,  54;  as  learning 
by  experience,  12;  as  search  for 
stability,  23. 

Physical  world,  70,  78  ff. 

Plato,  49,  267  n. 

Positivism,  59,  174. 

Pragmatism,  17,  215  (knowledge 
of  other  minds). 


Prediction,  in  science,  151. 

Prichard,  H.  A.,  Kant's  Theory 
of  Knowledge,  105,  109  n. 

Pringle-Pattison,  A.  Seth,  The 
Idea  of  God  in  the  Light  of 
Recent  Philosophy,  299. 

Psychical  Research,  95  ff.,  268. 

Psychology,  social,  204;  funda- 
mental concepts  of,  203  ff. ; 
working  assumptions  of,  206; 
without  a  soul,  208,  237;  objec- 
tive, 21 1 ;  too  individualistic, 
223 ;  animal,  225  ff . 

Purpose  (see  also  Teleology),  in 
relation  to  desire  and  value, 
74,  159  ff.;  in  relation  to  indi- 
vidual, 137;  and  purposiveness, 
159  «. 

Qualities,  are  they  real?  104 ff.; 
real  v.  apparent,  108  ff . ;  unper- 
ceiyed,  niff. ;  relative  to  con- 
ditions, H3ff. ;  private  and  in- 
communicable, 1 18. 

Real,  ch.  4;  as  synonym  of  true, 
84  ff. 

Reality,  as  truth  of  a  theory,  76, 
82  ff. ;  two  senses  of,  83 ;  as  dis- 
tinct from  appearances,  ibidem; 
three  problems  of,  in  actual  ex- 
perience, 91  ff. 

Reason,  24,  68  ff.,  124  n.,  186  ff. 

Reduction,  of  biological  phe- 
nomena to  physico-chemical, 
147,  151  ff.,  182  ff. 

Reincarnation,  268. 

Religion,  relation  to  morality,  46, 
303 ;  v.  science,  59  ff. ;  of  instru- 
mentalism,  42;  of  humanity,  59; 
philosophical  examination  of, 
297;  psychology  of,  ibidem; 
and  church,  298;  truth  (i.e., 
justification)  of,  301 ;  doubts 
about,  occasioned  by  the  war, 
304  ff. ;  essence  of,  305  ff. 

Resurrection,  of  body,  268  n. 

Romantic,   v.   scientific,   174  ff. 

Roux,  W.,  151. 

Royce,  Josiah,  229  n.;  The  Prob- 
lem of  Christianity,  300;  The 
Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  300  n. 

Russell,  Bertrand,  33  ff.  (theory 
of  scientific  method),  36  n., 
42  ff.,  44,  53,  79,  86  ff.  (theory 


INDEX 


313 


Meinong),  88  ff.  (on  unreal  ob- 
jects), 101,  109  ff.,  130,  (on 
sense-data  and  physical  objects), 
118,  124,  206,  212,  213  n.,  224, 
228;  Mysticism  and  Logic,  31  ff., 
43;  Our  Knowledge  of  the  Ex- 
ternal World,  35  ff.,  79  n.,  101  n., 
118,  123,  213  n.,  225;  The  Free 
Man's  Worship,  43,  63,  302  n.; 
The  Problems  of  Philosophy, 
44,  109 ».,  118,  124  n.,  206;  In- 
troduction to  Mathematical  Phi- 
losophy, 86  n.,  133  n.,  136  n.; 
Principia  mathematica,  126  n.; 
Principles  of  Mathematics,  285. 

Santayana,  George,  294  n. 

Schopenhauer,   102  n.,   198. 

Science,  as  model  for  philosophy, 
ch.  2 ;  and  modern  civilisation, 
29;  mathematical  v.  experi- 
mental, 31  ff. ;  v.  religion,  59  ff. ; 
as  power,  62;  morally  neutral, 
ibidem. 

Self,  ch.  9;  dualistic  (body-soul) 
theory  of,  262  ff. ;  James's  func- 
tional theory  of,  274 ff.;  and 
Not-Self,  288 ff.;  activity  and 
passivity  of,  290  ff. 

Self-consciousness,  ch.  9;  its  sig- 
nificance for  philosophy,  73; 
double-edged,  252,  255,  290;  and 
self-knowledge,  253. 

Sensations,  their  quality,  80 ;  phys- 
ical or  mental,  ibidem;  and 
sense-data,  icon.;  relativity  of, 
231. 

Sense-data,  ch.  5,  passim;  v.  sen- 
sations, 100  n.;  as  qualities  of 
things,  104  ff. ;  as  neutral  phe- 
nomena, 106;  as  effects,  ibidem; 
how  subject  to  causal  point  of 
view,  108;  private  or  public, 
118. 

Sinclair,  May,  A  Defence  of 
Idealism,  260. 

Socrates,  204. 

Solipsism,  224  n. 

Soul  (see  Animism  and  Self), 
why  banished  from  science, 
177;  as  immaterial  substance, 
235 ;  and  body,  239  ff.,  262  ff. ; 
how  related  to  self,  259;  sur- 
vival and  pre-existence  of, 
265  ff. 


Spaulding,  E.  G.,  The  New  Ra- 
tionalism, 249  n. 

Spinoza,  22,  30,  52,  102,  132, 
303  n. 

Spirit-hypothesis,  269. 

Standardisation,  of  qualities  by 
measurement,  no. 

Stout,   G.   F.,   Son.,   ii8n.,   129 n* 

Strong,  C.  A.,  72,  102  n. 

Swinton,  A.  A.  C.,  62  n. 

Substance,  101. 

Super-naturalism,  174, 

Survival,  of  soul,  265. 

Taylor,  A.  E.,  222  n. 

Teleology  (see  also  Purpose  and 
Mechanism),  74,  138,  143; 
logically  dominant  over  mech- 
anism, 144;  and  determinism, 
187  ff. ;  teleological  pattern  in 
nature,  193;  empirical  basis  of, 
195- 

Telepathy,  269. 

Tennyson,  292. 

This-Such,  131,  209,  255. 

Thompson,  D'Arcy  W.,  140  n., 
1 68  ff.,  172,  178. 

Transcendence  (see  also  Data), 
123,  131  ff.,  224,  240. 

Transcendentalism,  174. 

Troland,  L.  T.,  199,  200. 

Uexkuell,  von,  226  n. 

Universal,  and  particular,  131 ; 
function  in  knowledge,  135, 
183  ff.,  208  ff. ;  abstract  and  con- 
crete, 184. 

Universe  of  discourse,  criticised, 
87. 

Unreal  objects,  85  ff. 

Value,  as  opposed  to  fact,  22, 
54  ff.,  187  ff.;  synthesis  of,  with 
fact,  67,  195;  dependent  on  de- 
sire, 22,  55  ff. ;  theory  of,  55 ; 
subjective  or  objective,  56 ff.; 
relation  to  purpose,  74;  of 
life,  189;  naturalistic  theory 
of,  191 ;  not  merely  contingent, 
192. 

Vitalism,  v.  mechanism,  chs.  6,  7. 

Ward,  James,  181;  Principles  of 

Psychology,  237  n. 
Warren,  H.   C,   141  n.,  193. 


INDEX 


Webb,  C.  C.  J.,  Problems  in  the 
Relation  of  God  and  Man, 
296  ff. 

Weismann,  267. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  190  n.,  299. 

Whole,  point  of  view  of,  18, 
247  n.;  living  organism  as  a 


whole,  1 66. 

Wisdom,  love  of,  19. 

World,  of  sense,  76  ff. ;  as  ordered 
whole,  77 ;  as  result  of  inter- 
pretation of  data,  78. 

Yerkes,  R.,  236. 


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